Most of us are overwhelmed. How can we deal with it? How can we make sense of our lives and the world, which often seems to be beyond rational and sometimes on the verge of insanity?
Why are Jews treated so unfairly, especially when they defend themselves? Why is hatred of Jews and Israel so widely practiced – and accepted? Why is this not a moral question?
It’s the news, stories of tragedies and pain, senseless violence, and the failure of those in whom we trust to take responsibility. The mainstream media (e.g., The New York Times, BBC, CNN) and even some Israelis peddle anti-Israel lies and propaganda.
Muslim terrorists launch attacks around the world, while politicians and security agencies are often unable to protect their citizens.
The United Nations and the EU have turned against Israel.
Where do we belong?
What has happened to us? Where do we belong? Whom can we trust? Betrayal haunts us. We feel lost, detached, alienated, abandoned, and overwhelmed.
The crisis is personal and collective.
Deluged by fantasies, unfulfilled promises, and unintended consequences, we search for answers. Teased by hopes for peace and happiness, we are left alone, our dreams sunk into absurdities and our struggle to survive. Searching for equilibrium, depending on habits, we fall into routines that no longer offer support.
Examining more carefully what is happening around us, we need to ask different questions, including about our beliefs. As existentialists, we ask for meaning and purpose.
As empiricists, we rely on our experiences. As realists, we seek order, understanding, and comprehension. What makes life meaningful? What is true and truthful? It’s about how we perceive things, our perspective.
Novelists have written books about this – for example, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange, which became famous films. Now we are living it. A paradox. It’s called “the human condition.” We are, however, not helpless.
When bananas become overripe and inedible, it’s a perfect time to make banana cake.
Appreciating everything that has been given to you, most of all, yourself, you need to be there for others, and, at least as important, be there for yourself.
Be inspiring
Do what you can to help others. Be inspiring. Discover who you are. That’s what makes life worth living.
What does it mean to be overwhelmed? It means to live in a multidimensional world, a world of contradictions and paradoxes, the mundane and the eternal, now and forever, self-critical and self-confident, fragile and powerful, vulnerable and strong. These are not really opposites but part of the same being that is you, your connection to God, and godliness.
It means to be open to the world and to appreciate it, aware that you will encounter difficulties and disappointments. It means to be fully aware and to know whom you serve.
On that note, I’d like to recommend two books that I’ve found helpful: Loving What Is by Byron Katie and Why God Why? by Rabbi Gershon Schusterman. Taking proactive action – being aware – moves one from helpless to helping others and even oneself.