A dangerous slide

There are alternatives to going out to bars here. As I've mentioned before..there are cooking classes, talks about peace, etc. Anyways, there is one that is called 'In the House with Ari'. This is a weekly class, where the girls are invited to sit down and listen to topics that are relevant to our lives. Last week, Ari (who lives on campus with his wife Ayelet and his child Yitzchak who are one of the Mother's and Father's of the campus) brought up an interesting note. He told us that every single thing in life has a meaning or a lesson behind it. He described the walls as boundries and an EKG machine as us living with up and down and when we are dead its flat..so sometimes we get so overwhelemed that we are so sick of the rollercoaster of life..but without these hardships or happinesses we'd be a flat line, aka dead. SO at first, I thought making these comparisons would be one of the hardest things to do...I sat looking around in my room, and I just couldn't do it. However..as time passed I just laid down and closed my eyes.

A slide. A slide popped into my head. One second later my thoughts were on a marathon. You start at the top. You see an extremely fun ride below you. You know for a fact that it's going to be fun regardless of the situation. However...there is always a dead end at the conclusion of this so called fun.

After this I realized that it was just like me making a decision about moving here. Orlando, was pure fun to me...but I knew that it would always bring me to a wall, an ending. I would never be completely satisfied with life.

Another comparison I came across was a lawn mower. I know it's random..but it's what came into my mind at the time. When do you mow your lawn? When the grass is getting to long. But eventually, it grows back, and you have to do it again. It's like working on yourself. You see you have a certain issues with yourself, so you work on them, or mow your lawn. Eventually, your going to come across more things that need to be worked on, but you have the power to fix them.

One last one, A pita bread. A bland pita bread. No one really eats a plain pita. They fill it with falafel, tomatoes, cucumbers, humus, tahini, eggplant, etc. These fillings make it taste good, and sometimes will make it taste really good. You can compare your life to a piece of bread! Life is what you make it! Fill it with tasty and wholly ingredients, or leave it plain.

These possibilities are endless and also help you realize what you need to work on in your life. You can make these comparisons by yourself, and your results will always be something relevant to you. Of course any example is correct, but eventually you'll have an 'ah ha!' moment. I'm thankful for Ari explaining this simple concept to us at our weekly meetings.