“We” Not “Me”

Every single one of us wants to live happy, fulfilled lives. Many of us think that if we make a million dollars we’ll be fulfilled; or if we win a Nobel Prize, we’ll be fulfilled; or even, that if we have a perfect house, perfect family and perfect appearance, that we’ll be fulfilled. But so many people have spent so much of their lives running after all these things, and still ended up feeling very unfilled and unhappy.

We learn from secular psychologists that everyone needs to have a goal in life, something to shoot for and work for. Once we make a decision to work towards certain goals, whether they are financial, personal or social, psychology can give us the tools we need to be able to get there, and to reach our destination. All the secular ideas and strategies for how to succeed can be very good, at least in terms of getting us to focus. The difference between secular therapy and emuna coaching is on what we decide to focus on.

Again, it comes back to this idea of knowing what is really going to make us happy and fulfilled. So many of us are measuring our success by the tangibles in our lives, like the money we have in the bank; or the size of the house we live in; or the professional certificates on the wall. That’s a measure of wealth and status, but it’s not really “success.” Success, from the Emuna spiritual perspective, can only be measured by the amount of genuine fulfillment, joy and happiness we have in our lives.

In my work as a psychotherapist, I’ve met people who made millions and billions of dollars, and I honestly can’t think of one of them who are really happy. How many people do we all know who think that a lottery win is going to solve all of their problems? But when they study big lottery winners, they find that most of the time, the “big win” just buried the “lucky winners” under a pile of emotional, and even financial, problems.  They didn’t pray for the money and as a result, it didn’t come with a blessing. They had just as many problems as before, maybe even more.

So here’s the difference that makes the difference…

The one hard and fast rule that I’ve discovered from working with the “upper class” is that none of them felt fulfilled when they were only working for their own success and gratification. I’m not talking about lazy people here, or people who achieved their wealth the easy way, via a lottery win or windfall. These people put in an awful lot of effort; they labored away for years of long days and nights; they were super-organized and efficient.  Even so, if they were only working for their own self-aggrandizement, honor or wealth, they felt like failures, even when they reached and even surpassed the financial or career milestones they’d set for themselves.

In some cases, not only did they not feel fulfilled, they even felt more sad and broken than when they’d started out. Here they were, they’d reached the peak of success and they still didn’t feel so great. So then, they’d fall into depression and start asking themselves what was the point of it all? What else was there to live for? What was left to strive for, or to achieve?

So what’s the real secret of how we can become fulfilled? In a nutshell, it’s the secret of “we not me.”

How can we do this? By focusing on something called “ego nullification.” Once I nullify my ego, I’m not going to work for “me” anymore; I’m going to work for “you” instead. It’s no longer about me; it’s about “we.” I’m going to make a decision to focus on other people, particularly my loved ones, and I’m also going to focus on my relationship to G-d.

Regardless of our “socio-economic status” can all make this sort of decision to change and reshape our priorities. We can start right now to live our lives in a way that includes other people and G-d; to make a promise to ourselves and to G-d to start living a life of “we, not me.” If we have the strength of a promise and a vow behind our decision, then it’s going to set a bell off every time we get to a fork in the road, where we have to choose between “me” and “we”, and then we’ll remember what our real priorities are now. If we choose this path, we’ll get Heavenly help to stop living only for ourselves and gratifying our own desires, but to also live for others.  Even if we forget momentarily, Heaven will remind us where we’re really trying to get to in our lives, and lead us in the way we want to go.