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The Grass-is-Always-Greener Syndrome is a potent force against satisfaction. It is driven by jealousy that mixes worse with contentedness than gas with alcohol. Indeed, jealousy is such a powerful inhibitor to contentedness that it blinds to the point that the proverbial cup is no longer a question of half-full or half-empty. It could be 90 percent full, and the jealous one will only see empty.

The solution to the conspiracy of human nature, and the advertisers, as my daughter displayed so eloquently during breakfast that morning, is “self-control” – not the most popular term in America today. Contentedness, or almost interchangeably “happiness,” can only be achieved by battling one’s appetites.

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One who is prey to her lusts and desires will suffer the unhappiness of an addict. There is no appetite that cannot be addictive, which is why the free person – the one not obsessed with “what will they think of me?” – is the happy person.

(To be continued)  

Chodesh Tov – have a pleasant month!


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Rabbi Hanoch Teller is the award-winning producer of three films, a popular teacher in Jerusalem yeshivos and seminaries, and the author of 28 books, the latest entitled Heroic Children, chronicling the lives of nine child survivors of the Holocaust. Rabbi Teller is also a senior docent in Yad Vashem and is frequently invited to lecture to different communities throughout the world.