Cute cartoon

Saw this on the cool Jew site and wanted to share it.

It's so true, lol

keep going

Inspired by my own personal experience



They thought that they had improved
in this area, this middah(trait).
And they were glad about
their improvement.
Then they relapsed a little
and someone criticized them about it.
They felt down and felt they only hear
criticism and not acknowledgment.
Their friend gave them some
acknowledgement also, but the
criticism still stung.
What do you expect, for me to be
Perfect? The person thought and asked.
The friend answered, no you don't have
to be perfect.
It's natural to fall back sometimes.
We just need to continue making effort
and go forward.
---



Because of my experience, I felt discouraged. I've tried to improve my temper, and have succeeded many times, BH. But once in a while I relapse. I'm not a praise junky, but a little acknowledgment of my improvement is nice and lets me know I can succeed. Later though, I realized that even if I'm not acknowledged or just receive a little of it, I should still work on myself because it's the right thing to do. Plus, in truth, every effort counts towards reaching my potential.

music

nice vid Shlomo Katz at a concert

It's all in the perspective

I recently heard an inspiring message at Jwisdom.com about personal challenges and seeing them in a different light. Challenges are sometimes very hard and can easily bring us down, but we can choose our perspective when trying to deal with it. A positive view helps to alleviate it and get us through it; Plus afterwards, we're stronger than before

here it is, it's 6 minutes http://www.jwisdom.com/shows/565/

Grand Cayon from plane

While on a plane, I tried to take a couple pics of the Grand Canyon

The pics are not perfect but still nice

Here's some closer pics on google images of it click here

musical stairs

The pink sun

These are a couple of pics that I took as the sun was setting and looked very colorful. It actually looked darker in person.
I was thinking, I have to take a picture.

Importance of knowing why

Many are taught what to do in regards to our tradition, and we know different infomation about it. - Sometimes we feel it inside, and other times we don't. What helps us to continue it is to know 'why', then we understand the importance of doing what we are taught. Here's the basics to help encourage us

First, lets look what happens with our actions and behaviors. We know our actions have an impact on the world. But besides having a physical impact, they also have a spiritual impact, in which we either bring down good or bad energy, depending on whether we do mitzvos or aveiros. It is our choice what we do. Everyone does both of them. We all have ups and downs. What people need to do is pause and think about what effect a certain action might have, whether the action is between person and person, or one between person and G-d.

Besides that, it also effects our neshama. Our neshama needs food just like our body. Thus we have Torah and mitzvos. It's our source of nourishment and connects us to Hashem. We might not feel it sometimes, and it might just feel like rituals. That's why it helps to learn the meaning of a mitzvah, and try to do the mitzvah with joy. With continuous effort and time, the feeling inside will grow.

Finally, we should remember that it is our obligation to uphold the laws, traditions, ethics and values that we Jews are meant to keep, ever since that everlasting promise at Mount Sinai.

If you want more info you can ask and read here or ask someone in person

rhetorical questions

Recently I had an exam in this class, psychology of marketing. At the end of the exam, there were a couple of questions that were not related to the exam. The teacher justed wanted to know our viewpoint.
They are the kind of thought provoking questions inwhich the answer is subjective.

The first one was, 'if an author writes on a certain page that this page is blank, is the page still blank or not?'

The second one was about how do you prove to yourself whether you are dreaming or awake?

These remind me of that rhetorical question that many have heard, "If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make a sound?'' To me, this is not a good example. If you think about it, the sound waves are still there, whether someone is there or not. It doesn't disappear because nobody is there to listen. That's my thought anyhow

shalom

making a difference

There's going to be a basketball game here on Oct 20 involving the Los Angeles Clippers and the Maccabi Tel Aviv team.

The proceeds go to a youth villiage in Israel named Migdal Ohr which helps disadvantaged children; The organization was started by Rabbi Grossman who's from Jerusalem; Even without superpowers, it's truely amazing what one person can do, Baruch Hashem
Here's a video of the place there