Happiness in Judaism: Do I Have to Be Happy? Faith, Doubt, and Finding Joy

And what are you left with? And was it just a flash in the pan? Who are you? Are you changed? I deeply believe that we evaluate good and bad based on pleasant and unpleasant, good and bad, negative and positive, and we create sort of this like duality.

And we'll talk about that a lot, I hope, today.

But in reality, I believe the inner truth of what would be considered good and bad, or for argument's sake, maybe positive and less positive, would be growth or no growth.

So something could feel really hard and yet you are moving.

Where are you moving? Well, it's not always feeling forward, but you're learning something.

You're developing another muscle.

You didn't know you had another tool.

And I would say negativity, not that everything feels bad, but I think negativity would probably be sitting on my recliner.

for days and not helping anyone, which would probably lead to a negative life and depression.

But even if I thought that was the ultimate goal to sit poolside forever with a cocktail and help nobody, I think that would probably be negative movement.

And again, everyone deserves to sit poolside sometimes, but we're talking about a general lifestyle.

And if your lifestyle is sort of being of service, I would consider that to be a positive one and probably something that's moving in a very upward trajectory, even if there are some struggles, some pain.

along the way.

So what are we talking about today? I want to address some of the things I was sort of wrestling with and struggling with low key.

It's not an existential crisis, doesn't keep me up at night, but here are some of the things I was thinking about.