News Flash: You Have To Think Before You Speak

Now that Imus-gate is just about over, I can sort out my thoughts about this whole situation. Being a Rutgers alum, I will not pretend to be objective in my analysis.

When I learned that Don Imus was fired, I thought to myself "he didn't get fired just for that Rutgers comment". He has made a career of saying insensitive things about people. It is inevitable that one day his time would run out. The sad thing is I mostly knew of him for his shocking remarks. I had no idea that he and his wife ran a summer camp for kids with cancer. I hope he will take more care with his words in the future so that the good things he does stand out more than the bad.

This should provide ample warning for all of us concerning our speech; even celebrities have to pay the consequences for their actions. In his case, his punishment was aired in public. For non-celebrities, we face our punishment in private but nevertheless our actions come back to haunt us if we're not careful.

On a better note, I admire how the Rutgers womens' basketball team handled the situation. I don't think I would have been so mature if I had to handle this kind of situation as an 18-20 year old.

I'm Sorry But....

Is it just me or is the art of apologizing a lost art? Before Passover, I read a fascinating article on how people seemingly don't know how to apologize (I would link you to the article if I knew where it was located). I have also had some interesting personal conversations concerning this topic.

Apologizing is a part of several sad love songs; ever listen to "Hard for Me To Say I'm Sorry" or "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word"? (bonus points if you know who sings these songs). As we get older, we come up with more excuses and rationalizations for our actions and it just seems easier to preface an apology with these following statements "I wasn't feeling well", "I was cranky/tired/grouchy/angry/" or some variation of the above statement. My favorite is when people utter a non-apology "I'm sorry that what I said made you feel bad", or when you tell someone that something they said made you feel uncomfortable and the response is "I accept that".

Looking back, I know I've been guilty of saying more than a few non-apologies to family, friends, co-workers. Why is it so hard to simply say "I'm sorry"? That question is pretty simple, you humble yourself when you apologize, you admit that you messed up and surprise, you are not perfect.

The process of teshuva provides some great answers. You first have to admit that you messed up; if you're not genuinely sorry for what you did then you can't move on. Afterwards, you need to convey that message across to the injured party/parties. The next step is the most important work of all, do some self-introspection and think of ways you can handle the situation better next time. For example, let's say you lost your temper with a friend, think of ways you can avoid the situation; maybe avoid talking about the topic that angered you in the first place, counting to 10, taking a walk when you feel the first tinge of anger. The real test comes when you are in the same situation again and you act in a better way.

This is my challenge: next time you are in a situation when you do something that offends someone, apologize sincerely. Leave your excuses behind, just simply say "I'm sorry". Let's re-learn the art of apologizing : )

The Roller Coaster of Life

This week has definitely had its highlights and low points. The beginning of the week was all dreary and now it is sunny and beautiful. It mirrors how I felt at the beginning of the week (see my last post) and how I feel now. Things are most definitely looking up, it's not even the circumstances that have changed. It's all attitude. Given current events, I feel more blessed than ever.

Over the past two days, I have read all about the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting, all at different stages of life, some just starting at college with their whole future ahead of them, others set to graduate and start their post-college lives, established professors making their marks in various fields. The more I read, the angrier I got at the shooter. He not only killed 32 people but changed forever the lives of their families and friends. I also feel sorry for the shooter's family; how horrible it must be to live with the knowledge that your son is a murderer. I do hope some good comes of this, re-evaluation of campus security, the way college campuses deal with students who are mentally ill, something does need to change.

Time to get back to work, it's me, my boss, and 1 other person in the office today. It feels like a ghost-town today. There are a couple posts percolating in the back of my head which I hope will make it online. I wish Shabbat were here already.....

Request Denied

I prayed to G-d for something that I really wanted to go my way; my prayer was answered, but not in the way I wanted it to be. I'm really not very happy with G-d right now : (

Procrastination Technique #1

Today, I have found a wonderful procrastination technique for putting off doing my taxes. I've been watching clips of "The Charlotte Church Show" on YouTube. At the end of her show, Ms. Church has a musical guest sing either a cover song or their own song and she sings with them.

Last week, I saw a clip of her singing "9 To 5" with Fergie and on You Tube, there are a whole bunch of clips of Charlotte Church singing with other artists. You should really check them out, favorite clips of mine are the Fergie clip I mentioned previously, Brand New Heavies singing "7 Nation Army", Amy Winehouse singing "Beat It", and Nelly Furtado singing "Crazy".

Bye-Bye Legs

I thought that either Phil or Haley will leave American Idol and for once, I was right. I thought Haley would have been gone 2 weeks ago but "The Long Legs that Could" lasted longer than I thought she would. I managed to catch Sanjaya's performace and horror of horrors, I thought it kinda didn't suck. He was the only person that did a song in Spanish, everyone else sang songs that I thought are overplayed and lame. I thought I stumbled into an edition of "Songs that Suck". How very disappointing this season is!

Back to Reality

Passover 2007 (or 5767 depending on what calendar you go by) is over and I am very happy about that. I was getting very sick of matzah by the end of the holiday.

The last two days were a blur of good food and great conversation with old and new friends. One discussion I remember in particular was talking about faith vs. trust. I went to services at the Chabad house in my neighborhood and the rabbi talked about the parting of the Red Sea, specificially the reactions of the Jewish people. I apologize if I get parts of the story mixed up. Some of the people were scared and panicked, they wanted to go back to Egypt even though they were slaves there and were treated horribly. Others prayed to G-d with all their heart and soul; G-d told Moses that the Jewish people should not be afraid, they should just go forward and G-d will take care of the rest.

With the rabbi's words in mind, my friend brought up the question of whether it is better to have faith or trust in G-d. I was puzzled by this question; initially I thought they were the same thing. A woman at our table brought up a small but interesting distinction between faith and trust; she opined that if you have faith in G-d you believe that things will be okay, if you have trust in G-d, you believe that things are already okay. I really liked her answer so with that in mind, I bless all my readers with having trust in G-d.

Out of the Mouth of Kids

For the second seder, I went to my rabbi's home. His brother was in from Philly and he brought his family too. A little background; my rabbi has 7 kids and his brother has 6 kids. Imagine a house full of kids running around all night. They had more energy than I did. It was getting late (1 AM) and I was sitting in the living room with a few of the older girls (around 12-14).

Girl #1: We wanted to ask you this all night, how old are you?
Me: I graduated from college __ years ago, you figure it out.
Girl #2: So you're ___?
After a few guesses....
Me: Yes, I'm 31.
Girl #2: 31 isn't too old, you can still get married.
Me: Okay, so what age is too old to get married?
Girl #2: I don't know, maybe 45.

Chag Sameach

To all my Jewish readers, I wish you a happy and healthy Pesach. To all my non-Jewish readers, have a wonderful week.

I ate some cereal, Devil Dogs, and a croissant this morning. The deadline for eating chametz was 10:52 AM and you better believe I took advantage of them. Bring on the matzah : )

A Passover Post

Last week, I promised some serious posts and I will deliver. In addition to taking dance classes around the city, I've been to a couple of good lectures as well.

The first one I went to was almost 2 weeks ago on the West side. Holly Pavlov (dean of She'arim) gave a womens lecture about inspiration. We all get inspired and inevitably we lose that spark and we just go through the motions in life. There were some great ideas as to how to live inspired lives and the best thing is that we can easily implement these ideas in our own lives.

The first point mentioned was that if we are having trouble keeping a mitzvah or trying to take on a mitzvah, then do it for a flash. Think of a flash of lightning, at least for that moment you did the mitzvah. The second point was that our potential is endless, there is no limit to doing good deeds. Rebbitizin Pavlov also equated prayer as the breath of the world, which I liked quite a bit. I still find praying a little weird, I feel like I'm talking to myself instead of talking to G-d. That's something I have to work on. There are moments of lightness and darkness, you can't have one without the other. The last two pieces of advice were to make your life exciting in whatever way you can, think of every little good thing you do as exciting, whether it be smiling at a stranger, opening a door for someone, etc. Last but not least, she mentioned the importance of being humble and grateful, no room for arrogance. I enjoyed the lecture a bit, it was just what I needed to hear at that time.

This past Shabbas, I went to a dinner at my synagogue and heard a wonderful lecture on psychological and jewish perspectives on happiness. Due to the late hour the speech started, only 25% of the crowd showed up but we were treated to a great lecture. The speaker is a psychology professor at the Yeshival University Graduate School. A 30-minute speech felt like 5-10 minutes. The speaker mentioned a few situations in which someone found happiness, situations in which you wouldn't think that possible, i.e. a father finding out his son has cancer, 10 days later in synagogue for Yom Kippur he feels a wave of happiness; a young woman dying of a long illness finds happiness in her last moments of life looking at the sky and trees outside her window. He talks about the roots of the word happiness, hap (by chance, haphazard).Then, he mentioned a man who is making a ton of money yet is not happy because his co-worker is making more money. Yet, this same person could be happy making $40/month in Nepal living in a shack with no electricity. Basically, real happiness comes with connection and purpose, connection with your community, your family, and G-d. Again, it's something everyone knows but we all forget at one point.

I mentioned previously that I signed up for a lecture series over the phone with a rabbi from Israel and have learned about the deeper meaning of Passover. Why do we clean our houses from top to bottom? When we clean our houses for Passover, we are really cleaning our souls. We search our homes for chametz (fermented wheat, rye oats, spelt, barley), we search ourselves for any aspect of our personalities that need improvement, that are no good for us and need to be thrown out. Once we identify our yeud (purpose) and tikkun (what we need to fix in ourselves), we spend the next 7 weeks working to fix what needs to be fixed in ourselves so we can live up to our potential. It made the cleaning this year more bearable for me, also I have a small apartment so I really did not have it too bad : )

Time for me to get my laundry, I'm so grateful to have laundry facilities in my apartment so I don't have to shlep my laundry to the laundromat.