Going the Extra Mile

The Teenage Wall
 
If 'grown ups' grow by kicking against obstacles, the same certainly holds true of teenagers. Adolescents need us, their parents, to be their 'wall', that they can bounce off – and any type of wall is better than no 'wall' at all. When the parents give up, and let their kid do whatever they want, because 'he's beyond help', that's when the kid is going to go even crazier. We parents have to stand firm, and be the wall of defense that surrounds the child and the home. We have to set appropriate limits for our children, but we have to enforce them with kindness. We must have rules, but we need to implement them without anger, viciousness, or taking revenge on our children.
 
G-d knows that the nature of man is to want to avenge even the smallest dints to his pride. That's why there are all those passages talking about 'an eye for an eye', or, 'a tooth for a tooth'. Taking revenge is human nature. Why? Because G-d made us that way. Why? Because He wants us to grow and beat out of ourselves all these animal characteristics, and to make a real decision to have a spiritual life.
 
As a parent, we will face countless challenges to our pride and our authority as our children grow up. We'll have umpteen opportunities, every single day, to choose to grow, spiritually, or to impose our will on our children with threats, anger and 'punishments'. Once we start choosing to live a spiritual life, we won't argue or fight with anyone, any more. Even if we're right (and as parents, aren't we always 'right'?) – we're still going to back down, and we're going to send a very clear signal to our children that we are willing to go the distance for them, to be a good person, and parent in the G-d-centric way that G-d really wants.

The moment of death

I've been with a lot of people in the minutes and hours before they were about to pass away. It's amazing to see the radical personality changes that can happen with a terminally-ill person who knows they are about to die.
 
This insight into our final moments on earth was one of the biggest gifts of my life, because people who are about to pass on to the next world don't fake it. All of a sudden, they have clarity about what's really important in life. And it's not money; it's not their degrees; it's not the honor that other people give them. What It boils down to is simply how much love they received, how much love they gave, and the quality of their relationships with their friends and relatives.
 
Please G-d, we'll all be around until 120 years old, but we don't have to wait until those final moments to start making a thorough accounting of our own 'relationship equations', starting with our families. We have to ask ourselves now, while we can still change and still do something about it, how much do we really care for our family members? How giving are we with them, really? How much do we communicate to our loved ones, on a regular basis, that we are willing to give it all up, if need be, for them?
 
Most of the time, G-d doesn't actually call us on our commitment to go the extra mile for our loved ones, but our relatives themselves can feel our sincerity – or lack of sincerity – at every stage of our interactions with them. The eyes are the windows of the soul, and our spouses and children know exactly what we're really feeling.
 
When people genuinely feel that the other person would go the distance for them, whatever it takes, however hard it might be, regardless of the amount of self-sacrifice required, the conflict completely goes away, and all of a sudden, compromises can happen so easily. I've seen people completely reverse 'firm' opinions in seconds, that they hadn't budged on an iota for years.