Becoming a Winner
Winners are the ones who think positively. They constantly strive to improve and they monitor their actions, but they don't tear themselves down...
My wrestling coach in high school had a great saying: Winners never make excuses why they won the game – losers are full of excuses.
The rationale behind my coach's saying is that winners don't need to explain why they won. This principle holds true for life as well. In life, how do you know whether you're a winner or not? Simple; if you are happy, you are a winner.
No. 91 doesn't need to explain why he's winning the race – he's ahead! No. 2 will have all sorts of excuses why he lost – carburetor problems, a headache, not enough sleep the night before… photo courtesy of www.dailymotos.co.uk
But if you're not winning the fateful challenge that's called life, then you probably don't feel happy. And if you are not happy, you are either not listening to your coach, or better yet, you need to change your coach.
In spirituality, the name of the game is a healthy, illuminated soul. The best spirituality coach I know is Rebbe Nachman of Breslov. Rebbe Nachman says a person should be careful to always be happy.
Careful? What kind of term is that to use in regard to happiness? Is happiness some type of explosive or lethal weapon that one has to take care with?
In a way . . . Yes! Departing from happiness is like walking into a minefield of negative emotions. Rebbe Nachman warns us to stay far away from depression and sadness. Here, once again, people think that they are smarter than the coach. They say, "What do I have to learn from some Rebbe who lived 200 years ago?" My answer is simple. Take a look at the coach's record – how many people has he saved from negative emotions in the past two centuries? The answer is thousands! One of them is writing this article.
Millions of us suffer from tension, stress, anxiety, nerves, high blood pressure, and a whole gamut of negative emotions. Even if we are not losing the ball game completely, we are still having a tough time. Isn't it about time we listened to the coach, the expert healer of the soul? So let's put our brains aside and see what Rebbe Nachman has to teach us about attaining happiness and avoiding sadness.
Rebbe Nachman teaches that many of our problems stem from criticism, especially destructive criticism. Destructive criticism doesn't build anything. To the contrary, it knocks a person down and paralyzes him. Criticism is so terrible that a person can't even stand his or her own criticism. In a dozen years of emotional and spiritual counseling, I have never seen criticism help a person, reinforce faith, or strengthen positive emotions.
So what's the solution? Rebbe Nachman says a person should spend all day long looking for the good points. Why all day long? Simple, we need to counter the Evil Inclination, the Yetzer Hara, who is trying to tear us down, all day long.
It's dangerous to drop your guard. Allowing criticism, especially your own, to creep into your head brings on feelings of dissatisfaction. All of a sudden, you don't like what you're doing, whether it be your work, your studies or your career. Why join forces with those who only want to tear you down? Who ever heard of such a thing? Criticizing yourself is personal treason, disloyalty to yourself! How can you be loyal to others, if you are not even loyal to yourself?
Even in religion, the Yetzer Hara can come dressed as a rabbi, telling a person that he's no good, or not doing enough. The Yetzer pushes, saying, Take on more! Don't ever take advice from the Yetzer. You are not a frog in a biology lab; don't dissect yourself. The operation might succeed, but the patient dies. There's a world of difference between self-criticism and hitbodedut: With hitbodedut we ask Hashem to help us to do better; with self-criticism, we simply tear ourselves apart without a positive outcome.
Winners are the ones who think positively. They constantly strive to improve and they monitor their actions, but they don't tear themselves down. Positive thinking builds, negativity destroys. Positive thinking means looking for your good points!
Rebbe Nachman of Breslev, our coach in life, urges us to look for our faults sixty minutes a day, and spend the other twenty-three hours in the day being happy, focusing on our good points.
Here, in a nutshell, is the coach's game plan:
* Look for your good points.
* Spend an hour a day identifying and improving the things you're not happy with.
* Rather than torment yourself, atone for anything you might have done wrong. Tshuva, repentance, takes a great weight off one’s shoulders. Hashem is a loving Father who always forgives those who beg His forgiveness.
* Spend the rest of the day in happiness, looking only at your good points and being happy with them.
* Look in the mirror, because now you see a winner!
Tell us what you think!
Thank you for your comment!
It will be published after approval by the Editor.