This week’s newsletter is a little more philosophical and longer than my usual, but stay with me. I promise it’s going somewhere good.
You know how, when something becomes important to you or is on your mind, suddenly it feels like it’s everywhere. Thinking about a car brand, and suddenly, they’re all over the road. Talking about babies, and every stroller jumps out at you. Engagement rings, glasses, sheitels, a fashion trend — boom, constant sightings. It’s like once something’s on your mind, your brain flips a switch and starts spotlighting it everywhere you look. There’s actually a name for this — the Baader–Meinhof phenomenon, more commonly called the frequency illusion.
That’s exactly what happened to me this past week. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my purpose in life, sort of going through a midlife recalibration (and don’t ask me how old I am, lol). What am I supposed to be doing? Is this it? Is there more? And right in the middle of all that wondering, an idea started showing up everywhere.
If you’ve been following me for a while, you know I have a thing for words. I follow “word of the day” from a few publications, and sometimes a word catches my attention. This past week, eudaimonia showed up (Economic Times). It’s an ancient Greek term that Merriam-Webster defines as “well-being” and “happiness,” but it’s more like flourishing. It’s the deep sense of well-being that comes from living with purpose. It’s the state of being that is the result of a life lived well.
Interesting. I filed it away. Moved on.
But apparently, I wasn’t done with this idea. Or maybe it wasn’t done with me, because it came up again in a book I am reading about arete — another concept based on an old Greek word. It is translated as “virtue” or “excellence,” but it has a deeper meaning: It is expressing the best version of yourself, moment to moment.
The author, Brian Johnson, explains it like this: imagine a line way up high — that’s you being your absolute best self, living at your fullest potential. Now imagine another line, lower — that’s where you actually are. The space between those two lines? That’s The Gap. And when The Gap is too big, it doesn’t feel very good. But when you close it — when who you are and who you’re capable of being start to line up — that’s where the deep sense of joy lives.
Arete is the work. Eudaimonia is the reward.
Then — and I promise I’m not making this up — I opened this month’s Psychology Today magazine (yes, I read this for fun 🙈) and there it was on the cover: “Find Your Purpose.”
Three times in one week. The same idea, from completely different sources.
But as profound as these Greek ideas are, I’m a Jewish woman, and I wanted to know what the Torah has to say about all of this, because if Hashem was putting this theme in front of me on repeat, I figured the answer wasn’t going to come from Aristotle.
And it doesn’t.
Buckle up — this is about to get deep.
You were created with all of your potential inside you. Which means you didn’t show up here empty-handed. You have whatever you need for your unique purpose. The Maharal compares a person to a seed — everything the tree will ever become is already in there. The height, the roots, the fruit. But a seed still has to be planted, watered, and given time to grow. It has to push through dirt. Your potential is like that. It’s real. It’s in you. But it doesn’t unfold on its own.
I say this as someone who has spent a good amount of time lately wondering if my seed got lost in the mail. It didn’t. Yours didn’t either.
The Gemara says every person is supposed to walk around saying, “Bishvili nivra ha’olam” — the world was created for me. You matter because the world needs you. That sounds a little chutzpadik. But it’s not about ego. It’s about the fact that there is something in this world that only you can do. Only you. And if you don’t do it, nobody else will. It’s YOUR potential.
You know the story of Reb Zusha? He’s on his deathbed, crying, and his students can’t figure out why. He says, “When I get to shamayim, they’re not going to ask me why I wasn’t Moshe. They’re going to ask me why I wasn’t Zusha.” I think about that a lot. Because most of us aren’t comparing ourselves to Moshe Rabbeinu. We’re comparing ourselves to the woman down the block, or the one with the perfect Instagram, or the friend who just seems to have it all figured out.
But the question is — are you being you? Are you closing your gap? Because who you are matters more than you think.
I’ve been asking myself this a lot lately. “Am I being me? The real me? The full me?” And some days the answer is yes. And some days it’s “I don’t even know who that is anymore.” If you’ve ever felt that, keep reading.
You may be thinking, “But what if I’m not capable of more?” or “I don’t even know what my purpose is.” I’d push back on both. Because I think most of us do know. We just don’t trust it. It’s the thing you keep thinking about. The thing people always come to you for. The thing that energizes you instead of draining you.
That restlessness you feel? That nagging sense that something is off, even when everything looks fine? That’s The gap. When the distance between who you are and who you could be gets too wide, you feel it. You can’t always name it, but it’s there, this low hum of “something is missing.” You don’t feel like yourself. You feel stuck, unsettled, like you’re not living up to something you should be.
Not every person’s tachlis makes headlines. It doesn’t have to be big or impressive. It just has to be yours. You need to stop talking yourself out of it.
If you feel that pull — a dream, a calling, something that just won’t quit — that’s Hashem telling you there’s something here for you.
The pull IS the proof.
I get it. Sometimes the problem isn’t knowing what you’re meant to do. It’s believing you’re the one who’s meant to do it. Even Moshe Rabbeinu felt that way. Hashem shows up in a burning bush — literally — and tells him to go lead the Jewish people, and Moshe says, “Mi anochi?” Who am I? I’m nobody. I can’t do this. Send someone else. And Hashem doesn’t give him a pep talk. He just says: Go. I’ll be with you. You don’t have to feel ready. You just have to go.
I love this idea. You don’t have to feel ready. You just have to go.
Which, by the way, is also great advice for getting out of bed on a Monday morning. But I digress.
When you’re growing, even in small ways, when The Gap starts to shrink, you feel more at peace. More like yourself. You have a sense of “I’m on the right track.” You might not be there yet, but you’re moving in the right direction. And that alone feels great. The Gap never fully closes. Nobody reaches 100% of their potential. Nobody. But that’s not the point. The point is closing it a little more each day. Going from here to a little closer. And then a little closer again.
This is what Pirkei Avos was referring to when it said: “Lo alecha ham’lacha ligmor, v’lo ata ben chorin l’hibatel mimenah” — “It is not upon you to finish the work, but neither are you free to desist from it.” You don’t have to close The gap. You just can’t stop walking.
So what stops us? Sometimes it’s fear. Fear of failing, of looking foolish, of wanting something and not getting it. Sometimes it’s comfort. Life gets busy, “fine” starts to feel like enough, and we stop reaching. Sometimes it’s that we’ve spent so long being what everyone else expects us to be that we never stopped to ask who we were actually meant to become.
But the one that gets us the most? “This can’t be my tachlis.” I am single. I’m just a mother. I’m just a teacher. I’m just volunteering, it’s not a real job. We look at our lives and think our real purpose must be somewhere else, in some other stage, some bigger version of ourselves. We think tachlis has to be loud. Something people can see. Something that looks impressive from the outside. So we dismiss what we’re already doing because it doesn’t feel grand enough.
But tachlis doesn’t need a bigger stage. It’s built into this one. The mother with a toddler on her hip, the single girl who’s been on forty-seven first dates, the grandmother beginning a new chapter.
This IS it.
This is where your tachlis lives.
So what’s the takeaway?
You were placed in this world with a mission that no one else can fulfill. Hashem looked at all of history and said, “This moment needs her/him.” Your Neshama was chosen for this life. For this chapter. For right now.
That’s how much you matter.
Your tachlis isn’t a destination. It’s a direction.
Keep walking.
(All this from one word of the day. 😄)
