Happiness – No Matter What!
Want to succeed in life? Of course! Everyone does! Let’s discover the secret to success in life.
I met someone who, baruch Hashem, is blessed with success in every aspect of his life – in his learning, in his family life, and in his parnassah. He’s so well-liked that everyone runs after him and seeks his company. He appears to be the embodiment of the words in the first perek of Tehillim, “...he succeeds in his every endeavor.”
I once asked him, “What’s the secret of your amazing success?”
“Before I do anything, major or minor,” he explained, “I lift my hands to Shamayim and say: Ribbono shel Olam, please help me! Ribbono shel Olam, stand by my side!”
Such a person davens to the Borei Olam again and again over the course of each day. Hashem’s Name is always on his lips.
This is a wonderful guideline for a life of happiness. When a person walks through life together with the Creator of the world, everything he undertakes will succeed. But we need to set up the connection, to ask for everything small as if it’s a major issue. And Hashem helps.
Everyone knows that often, when we make requests and we daven, our prayers go unanswered. Our yeshuah seems to be light-years away. If only we knew why, it would be easier to wait, but the reason is hidden from us.
It’s important to remember that every challenge in life is a faithful messenger of the Borei Olam, sent to refine us and to raise our lives to a higher standard of spiritual living.
When a person accepts suffering with love, he can elevate his entire life. He can transform a life of hardship to one of pleasure and satisfaction.
Individuals who are at peace with themselves accept suffering willingly. They don’t worry about it and they don’t suffer anxiety because of it; they know it has a constructive purpose, because “whatever Hashem does, He does for the good.”
One time Rabbi Shmuel Shneor zt”l, a brilliant talmid of Rabbi Gershon Livman zt”l of Novarodok, came to Lakewood. It was an extremely hot day, and anyone who could stay home remained safely settled next to the air conditioner.
And whom do I see out for a stroll? None other than Rav Shmuel Shneur.
“Aren’t you hot?” I asked him. “Don’t you suffer from the heat?”
“I love the heat!” he responded.
Ah! What a madreigah! Rav Shmuel enjoyed hardships. It’s a great madreigah to love suffering!
Everything depends on a person’s attitude. When one accepts a hardship with love, he no longer suffers from it. In addition, he will earn sachar for having endured it.
The Alter of Slabodka taught that if a person doesn’t suffer from situations that people generally consider to be misfortunes, that person will be rewarded all the same. One who accepts the difficulties of life with love will not suffer in this world, since he loves the difficulties that Hashem sent; nor will he suffer in the World to Come.
May Hashem grant us pleasant lives, filled with the revealed good that will be good for them in this world and the Next; amen.
