Chapter Five
Perspective on Life
Perspective provides context, enabling us to extract and attach meaning and significance to our challenges. It allows us to see how seemingly disparate elements integrate into a larger whole, like threads woven into a tapestry. Without context, there can be no recognition or appreciation of our experiences. Everything Hashem does is for the good, and how much of that good we can recognize largely depends on us.
The more responsible our choices → our self-esteem increases → our ego shrinks → our perspective widens → we see a greater context → life (and its challenges) gain deeper meaning → bringing greater pleasure, with suffering tempered if not absorbed.
The less responsible our choices → our self-esteem decreases → our ego expands → our perspective narrows → we see a diminished context → life (and its challenges) lose meaning → leading to anxiety and despair.
The pinnacle of perspective even insulates us from physical pain. A person can crawl across broken glass to escape from a burning room, experiencing little or no pain. His focus is on the larger, truer, and more important picture. The Romans arrested Rabbi Akiva and executed him by brutally tearing the skin from his body with iron combs. As he was being tortured, Rabbi Akiva joyously recited the Shema: “Hear, O Israel, the L-rd is our G-d, the L-rd is One.” He smiled at his students in the moment just before his death and said that he was overjoyed to have finally achieved serving Hashem with all of his being. The Gemara relates that Rabbi Akiva stretched out the word echad until his soul departed with complete recognition of Hashem’s total unity. In a word, he had context. When a person recognizes that his pain has meaning—even when he cannot discern the message Hashem is showing him—the pain does not metastasize into suffering, and the experience becomes more bearable and, for those on the highest of levels, even joyous.
Research in physical pain management shows us that pain severity depends on the context in which the pain occurs. The pain threshold increases as the patient better understands the body’s healing process and the role of pain in healing. This explains why major depression is associated with a decreased pain threshold. As we become increasingly focused on ourselves, we are left with only pain, making much of life, even living itself, intolerable.
Meaning Brings Pleasure
We may fear pain, but it’s crucial to recognize that pain leads to suffering only when it lacks proper context and meaning. We all experience pain, but suffering is the emotional consequence of our choices. We recall the connection: responsible choices increase self-esteem, diminish the ego, broaden our perspective, enhance context, and bring meaning to our lives and challenges, which ultimately leads to greater pleasure and less suffering.
The belief that pain must be feared and avoided is a misguided mindset. Ironically, escapism creates the very outcomes we seek to avoid. We have learned that Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai said: ‘The Holy One, Blessed be He, gave three great gifts to Yisrael, and each one was acquired through discomfort—Torah, Eretz Yisrael, and the World to Come’” (Berachos 5a). The goal of our existence, to grow and attain our reward in Olam Haba, is achieved only through encountering discomfort or pain along the way.
David HaMelech writes “Had I not been preoccupied with Your Torah, I would have perished in my suffering” (Tehillim 119:92). Despite his life being full of trials and tribulations, his Tehillim exudes joy and gratitude, because when one lives a meaningful life, pain and pleasure coexist. It is essential to understand that pain does not make a person unhappy—suffering does. Meaning fills our lives with pleasure and douses the flames of suffering. Struggles and setbacks are a part of life, but without perspective, they become our lives.
A life of comfort and ease is maddening. The relentless pursuit of comfort is essentially an avoidance of life itself. It not only robs us of genuine pleasure but also delivers us into the waiting arms of emotional disease. In an attempt to bypass legitimate pain, we short-circuit our mental health, and our fruitless attempts to hide from life only bring us suffering and despair.
In the next installment, we’ll explore how the pursuit of ego-driven objectives—such as money, power, and fame pursued as ends in themselves—removes us from reality just as completely, and just as quickly, as the pursuit of amusement and recreation for their own sake. We’ll also see how research confirms that people who prioritize material wealth and superficial success consistently report higher levels of anxiety and depression—and lower levels of happiness and life satisfaction.
(To be continued)
