Some thoughts from past few weeks, hopefully some can relate and benefit (just general reflections on my life, no specific insights or points):
So much of my life is dedicated towards "making it." Actually all of it is. Making it in terms of limud, making it in terms of career, making it in terms of social perception. To give one of the strongest examples in my own life, as a baal teshuvah I am about a decade behind on my learning skills. I learned the alefbet when I was 25, I still stutter my way through Hebrew, and opening up a gemara can feel like getting broken against the rocks by a tidal wave. But there are goals that simply cannot be delayed further. Making it to yeshiva. Getting a proper Torah education. Getting married, having a family, supporting that family.
All of these are very holy goals. They are my deepest goals. But in chasing them day in and day out, or, rather as a more accurate and poignant description, attacking them day in and day out, I lose my sense of what I am actually doing. Despite the holiness of these goals, I find myself simply trying to make it in olam hazeh. Gone is the bright eyed baal teshuvah davening gingerly and excitedly reaching out to Hashem. Glossed over is the emotional and psychological trauma of completely redefining myself and my world outlook. Things both small and large remind me constantly of the increasingly massive chasm that exists between who I am today and who I was a couple of years ago. That all of my recent text conversations are with people I have only known for a year. That I have so easily walked away from emotionally significant relationships with people who are not right for me and the path I need to take. That my entire definition of right and wrong has changed so quickly and significantly. But there is no time to process, I have to make it.
I know I am on the right path and that on the other end of this long dark corridor is the most real and true version of myself that could be. But the experience of going through the corridor, the real fear, pain, and difficulty in addition to its significance, joy, and beauty, all become obscured by the burning drive to "make it" through.
As Jews we are driven to reach for gadlus, but we can't even tell where we stand. We default to the our own assumed and socially influenced definition of success and stretch ourselves thinner and thinner until cracks start to show. We are not here to impress. We are not here to "make it." We are not here to be perfect. Although I can only speak from my own experience, I believe we have to be honest about the incredible strain and pressure we are under. It is a hard time to be a Jew, regardless of your background. It is a hard time to connect to G-d. These are dark days. We have to honor the strain and the difficulty we are under. It is an injustice to degrade and beat ourselves up over our struggles. Only G-d knows how we are really doing, and regardless of what successes and failures we think we have had, none of it changes the simple fact that our job is to serve Him from exactly where we are right now, as exactly who we are at this moment. When cracks show, we need to respond to them with self-compassion stemming from an honest recognition of our reality.
