Peace with others starts with peace with ourselves. Imagine: You knock yourself out to make a royal Shabbos for your guests, the family that just moved next door. The salmon is cooked to perfection. The dips are home-made and delicious. Your best schnapps – the one that’s saved for special occasions – comes out for a l’chaim. The roast is perfectly pink in the middle, soft and succulent. Even the vegetables are done just right. The kugel, however, stayed in the oven a bit too long. It has a vaguely burnt taste.
“You burnt the kugel!” your guest cries out. “It tastes like ashes! How could you serve this?” How unfair and absurd would this complaint be? The hours of time you put into shopping for, cooking and serving this gourmet meal all fall by the wayside because one out of the dozen dishes you served was not quite right. Who would act like this?
Oddly, the answer to that question is that you do. We all do. Not toward other people, but toward ourselves. We kick ourselves endlessly for the things that go wrong, readily overlooking the things we do right: You burned the kugel, but your table was warm and welcoming. You lost the account, but you’ve gained many others. You said the wrong thing to your friend, but you’ve always been there when he needs you. Your davening was distracted today, but yesterday, your heart was connected.
Research shows that people notice seven times more of their mistakes than their triumphs. But when we walk around with so much negativity inside, it’s hard to project positive feelings to the outside world. The trick is to catch ourselves doing good, even the smallest thing. This will help reverse the ratio and fill up our emotional fuel tank with love we can share.
