Rebbetzin Heller gave a shiur last night in Kew Gardens Hills on Breaking out of Our Complacency.
Here is post from her website on happiness:
There are two kinds of simchah. One is the vivid, transient, engaging joy that the animal soul is addicted to. It propels us to almost constant movement towards whatever the next moment offers (note, not this moment; its enemy is the present and its friend is the future).
One of my friends was telling me about what people sometimes refer to as “their former livesâ€, meaning the way they were before real growth was even a possibility. “I was always looking for something new, better, improved and most of all different than what I already had.
There was something so dreadfully frightening about the present moment that just thinking about life never being something “more†was more than I could handle. I tried almost everything that seemed to hold promise.
When I finally found something real, a path that can actually be followed, a lifestyle that works, my friends response threw more for a loop. You know what they said? They asked what my next step would be. It was just inconceivable to them that I don’t have a next step, that I finally found a way of living in which the present is where I want to be. They just don’t know what that kind of happiness is. They aren’t stupid or boorish or shallow. They just grew up knowing only one way to joy.
The other kind of happiness is the kind that is there within you all of the time. It just has to be uncovered. The past holidays brought us into contact with this side of ourselves. We use every moment to let Hashem rule. This can take place in your home, when you let go of ego issues, or at work when you move beyond status or gain.
You can take Yom Kippur with you when you reconnect to the part of you that you knew when you asked forgiveness for doing things that your realized (at least at the moment) aren’t your essential self.
Have a great after-the-holidays life
