Category Archives: personal development

Myth busting – I don’t have the time to be frugal

frugal strategies, personal development

Often people say they don’t have time to do money saving activities- they’re just too busy.

I empathize with how full life can be – overwhelmingly full, even.

There are two parts to my response.

The first is that very few people are completely honest with themselves about how they spend their time, and that leads them to think they have less time than they do.

Nine years ago I began tracking my time throughout my day, and I did this for many months. It was incredibly eye opening. It showed me where I actually spent my time, how much time I spend on those activities, and how much time I wasted with nothing to show for it.

Time tracking is like money tracking – it lets you know what you have and where it’s going. I’m not suggesting you track your time but I’m positive that if you did, you’d find you have much more discretionary time than you think.

I think just as big an issue as not having an accurate idea of how your time is spent, is the fact that no one wants to spend their time doing things that they associate with drudgery and deprivation.

Everything takes time. It takes time to shower, to get dressed, to make your food, to eat, to take care of your children and to drive to work. It takes time to go to the gym, or take a hike or a vacation.

Life is full of time consuming activities. Just like with money, it’s potentially empowering when you realize YOU get to choose to spend your time in a way that brings the most value to your life.

I deeply appreciate having peace of mind around finances. I like knowing that my family always has food and clothing, our bills are paid, and upcoming expenses are budgeted for. I like being relaxed when the holidays come around or when my children get engaged and married, knowing that I’m prepared for all of the related expenses. I like living without deprivation and without worry about debts. This is fundamental to my quality of life.

It’s not our income that has created that peace of mind, but how I spend what we have. Right now we have a comfortable income, but even throughout all of the years that our income was much, much lower (most of our married lives), living frugally has consistently created a high quality of life for our family.

So I spend time tracking our income, budgeting, meal planning, shopping carefully and doing a lot of things myself rather than hiring others to do it for me. I enjoy doing those things and have a sense of satisfaction around them. I see the value of them and I associate them with an abundant life.

I suggest that if you were to associate money saving activities with being able to live your life in the way you want, you’d also find enjoyment in them. It’s much easier, even with a busy schedule, to make time for the things you enjoy doing.

You have all of the time you need. But you have to use it intentionally, you need to be conscious and aware of how you budget it, so that it will add to the quality of life you want to have.

Avivah

The little stuff really makes a difference

frugal strategies, personal development

Everyone wants to hear about a hack that will save them thousands a month. But there are very, very few suggestions like that out there.

If you want to cut your expenses, there are almost endless ways to do so. The problem is the small things seem so small and inconsequential that most people think it’s not worth their time and effort.

The truth is the little details add up and add up and add up. I can think of so many small things I do, and each one by itself doesn’t seem like it matters, but my ability to save as much as I do is a result of these small things combined.

I love frugality. I think it’s an incredible tool and for me it’s been expansive and empowering. It’s so unfortunate when people look at frugality as deprivation and doing without. That’s not what it’s meant to be and I understand the avoidance a person may feel if that’s what they think it’s going to be for them.

Frugality is about knowing what you want and spending your money on what matters most to you, so you can have the quality of life that you desire.

For example, for us it was really important that I stay home with our children, and I’ve been home full-time for the last 28 years even when we’ve had a very modest income. Many people will tell you that you need two incomes to make it, especially with a large family. Frugality made it possible for us to have the luxury of a big family, avoid debt and have a rich quality of life.

Your money is like a leaky faucet. Those little drips of water seem like a small amount, but they will run up your water bill quite a bit! And if you save those little bits of leaking money, over time it adds up to your benefit.

We were working with a small budget and a large family for a long time and as the years have gone by, our income has gradually gone up and our resources have grown. It’s been like a slow moving snowball that picks up more and more speed as it continues downhill. I wouldn’t be where I am now without all of those small, consistent steps, day after day, year after year.

Consistent small actions will lead to big results. I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago that we would have been able to pay off as much of our mortgage as we have – I mentioned how much we have left to one of my married sons last night and he was taken aback by how small the amount was – but we kept putting extra towards the principal and it’s been exciting and almost magical to see the loan amount and loan length melting away.

I’m going to write about different frugal suggestions and tips, and encourage you to think about what you can apply to your own lives. Everything won’t be for everyone but don’t make the mistake of dismissing the suggestions as not being big enough to make a difference. They absolutely will add up. As the saying goes, “Look after the pennies and the pounds will look after themselves.”

Avivah


Prices are going up but we’re still living in good times

frugal strategies, personal development

I’ve been thinking a lot about money and frugality lately, particularly with the price increases that went into effect.

The following costs increased in Israel as of January 1, 2025:

  • property tax: 5.29% increase
  • electricity rates: 3.8%
  • water bills: 3.4%
  • Value Added Tax (VAT): 1% increase (this is added to every purchase in Israel, other than produce)
  • National Insurance contributions: rates will increase from 0.4% of income to 1.2%, a 0.8% increase

Tax credits will be frozen, we’ve been told public transportation costs will go up, food will continue to go up – everything is expected to get more expensive. That’s not such a pleasant thought, particularly as we’ve experienced inflation and rising prices in the last few years.

I’ve read a number of articles about the price increases and the message of every single one is that they are going to negatively impact our society. It doesn’t resonate with me to tell people how much worse off they’re going to be, because I don’t like narratives that turn you into victims. It never benefits you.

You have choices in every situation that can improve your situation in some way. Sometimes life is hard, even very hard, but there are still better or worse ways to think about and deal with your situation.

My approach to these increases is to ask myself, and a question I encourage others to ask if they’re concerned about prices going up, how can I make the coming year as good or better than the one that just ended? Is it possible? I think so and that’s my goal for the year to come. For that to happen I’ll need to be more intentional about goal setting, budgeting and spending.

When people complain that things just keep getting worse and never get better, I wonder if they’ve lost sight of the bigger picture, as we live in a time of unprecedented abundance.

You have clean running water and indoor plumbing; chamber pots and outhouses aren’t the norm. You can take a hot shower inside your own home. You dress in clothes washed in a washing machine, you don’t boil huge pots of water to do the laundry or scrub it down at the river’s edge. You turn on your stove and oven with a flick of a dial – my great grandmother had a wood stove and cried with happiness when she got a gas stove. The physical effort you need to expend on a daily basis to provide for your needs is miniscule compared to the past.

You have stores filled with a variety of food products unimaginable to past generations and can find just about everything, regardless of seasonality. You have large quantities of inexpensive foods in every store in your country. You don’t have to stand on food lines waiting for hours for your one allotted loaf of bread, only to find out that there’s none left and then you need to stand on the next line for your allotment of potatoes for the week. You can buy whatever quantity that you want.

Clothing and household goods have never been less expensive and more easily acquired. You often don’t even have to leave your home – click on the computer to order and it arrives at your door a day or a week later. I have a clothing order that’s supposed to come today that I ordered from overseas less than three weeks ago; in the past my orders came within a week and I feel as if something’s not right for it to have taken so long to get here! When we get used to luxuries, we take them for granted.

Thrift and second hand stores are filled with items that are in excellent condition, often unused. My daughter volunteered at a clothing gemach and told me the quality and quantity of donations is so high that they don’t keep anything missing a button, needing any kind of repair or not in perfect condition or out of date. That reflects a level of material abundance that didn’t exist thirty years ago.

So being grateful will make you a happier person. Being more content and positive about life is worthy of the effort on its own. But when it comes to money, it’s not putting more money in your pocket, is it?

Maybe it can. When you feel grateful for what you have, you feel less entitled and more willing to consider different options. When you focus on all that you have, you need less. When you recognized you need less, you buy less. When you buy less, you have more money to put into savings. And that happens without feeling deprived and unhappy.

Avivah

You as the expert in you

personal development

I had a fascinating conversation yesterday.

A woman I spoke to shared that she been struggling in a certain area and was looking for resources to help her. As she looked in depth at different programs available, she began to feel concerned about the meta message inherent in the various products she was looking at. That message was, you can’t improve or grow or figure out an issue you’re having without a professional telling you how to do it.

In the end, through a lot of introspection and conversation with a trusted family member, she was able to work through it on her own. She found it very empowering to come to a positive resolution on her own, and after getting clarity on what the real issue was, is confident that the program she was considering enrolling in wouldn’t have helped her deal with it. She would have missed out on all that personal development if she had gone the route of enrolling in a course.

Obviously, there are lots of great courses out there that can enrich someone’s life. And since effective marketing is often about telling people how badly off they are without your product and why you’ll be better with it, there’s going to be a message of ‘buy this for your life to be better’.

She wasn’t questioning if these courses can be valuable at times, and obviously there are times that you can benefit by turning to professionals for targeted assistance. She was expressing concern that the overall message is disempowering and leads people to stop tuning in to and trusting themselves.

Someone else recently shared with me that she’s taking yet another personal development course and she ‘hopes this one will be everything I want it to be’. ‘Of course it won’t,’ I told her with a smile.

How do I know that? Because she has a lot of things to deal with in her life and there’s no course that will give her the results she’s hoping for. The answers she’s looking for are inside of her, and she’s not going to find them by taking one more course and one more and one more and one more.

There are two different components in this message of disempowerment:

  1. You need professionals to help you improve your life and can’t trust your own instincts and thoughts, because you aren’t a professional.
  3. You start looking for the answers outside of yourself and stop seeing yourself as the locus of control. If something isn’t working, then you need to find a different resource, a different advisor – it’s about them, not about you.

This is an incredibly disempowering attitude to adopt, but it’s one that is becoming more prevalent and we don’t even realize the subliminal messages coming from all directions that lead us to think like this.

As a special needs and foster mom I regularly speak with therapists, psychologists and social workers who express surprise at my understanding of human psychology and child development, and ask me how I know what I know.

Here’s something mind bending to consider: Did you know that you can learn a lot about a topic, even acquiring a high level of knowledge in an area, without getting a degree in it?

While we may intellectually believe this, we somehow still tend to believe that the average person needs an ‘expert’ to tell him how to best live his life.

I got a call a month ago from my health clinic letting me know that the tests I haven’t done that they recommend for someone my age are building up and strongly encouraging me to come in to have them done. I told the nurse calling that I’m concerned about my health, take appropriate steps to care for my health, and if I feel in need of testing in any area of concern, I’ll come in.

Then she asked me, “But how can you know you’re healthy if you don’t do the testing?”

Her response is a perfect example of the ‘expert is outside of you’ paradigm. It’s irrelevant how I feel or what I know after a half a century as to what living in my body feels like – if I haven’t taken a test to tell me I’m okay, I can’t be okay.

In my view, how do I know I’m healthy? I look at myself in the mirror, I see myself, I live in my body – if I’m free of pain, if everything works well, if I think clearly, if I have energy – I’m healthy. There are symptoms that indicate that imbalances are beginning to present in one’s health; disease doesn’t occur overnight. If you’re paying attention you’ll generally notice when something isn’t feeling right, when something is changing.

It’s unfortunate when we accept what others tell us about ourselves as more valuable than what we think or know. Even when you turn to the experts, a doctor can’t make you healthy, a therapist can’t heal your childhood traumas, a coach or course can’t give you self-esteem- they can only support you in taking care of yourself. They would be the first to tell you that you have to do the heavy lifting yourself; you have to make the effort and invest in yourself.

Often you can make those same or better efforts for yourself with your own insight and your own research, as the woman I referenced at the start did. Your success is in your hands; don’t discount who you are and what you know.

When you selectively turn to someone for assistance in furthering your development in any given area, remember that the magic is in what you do with the knowledge they share.

Avivah

My morning schedule – what’s working and why

personal development

As a prelude to creating my morning schedule, I sat down to consciously decide what areas of my life are most valuable. Then I plan those activities in before planning in any other activities. I’ve talked about this idea before, using Stephen Covey’s explanation of putting in the ‘big rocks’ first.

Here’s one way I did it recently: I filled in a pie chart with each sliver representing possible ways to spend my time. I then rated each slice with the value (from 0 – 10) I place on it currently, and then give it a rating for where I want it to be.

Some of my categories: marriage, health, children, extended family, financial management, exercise. There could be many more. They each have their own number value assigned to it.

When there is a discrepancy between how I spend my time and how I want to spend my time, I consider what needed to be better balanced to reflect the true value.

For example, since I did this exercise during the summer, when the kids were all home, my husband and I didn’t have much quiet time together. My ‘marriage’ slice was imbalanced. So I planned that beginning the very first morning that the kids went back to school – before I filled my time with any of the smaller actions that are always available to fill time – we’d take a morning walk together. That’s been wonderful and now I feel realigned in that area.

Here’s my current morning schedule for every day except Shabbos:

4:45 am – wake up, get dressed

5 – 5:30 am – morning pages – write three pages of stream of consciousness by hand. This is from the book The Artist’s Way, and the purpose is to clear your mind. This is new to me this summer, not something I wanted to do at all but was strongly recommended by someone whose input I very much valued. I did it even though I had a lot of resistance to the idea, and when I shared with my husband the value I was getting from it, he started doing it as well. On most mornings we sit outside together when it’s still dark out, each busy with our own writing. It’s become something I really appreciate.

5:30 – 6:15 – meditation/visualization exercise, followed by davening/prayer.

6:15 – wake up the four youngest kids, get them ready for school – ideally I would pack lunches the night before but I haven’t yet gotten myself organized enough for that, so that happens first thing while they are waking up.

7:07 – 7:19 – be outside with kids waiting for pickup by school vans

7:20 – 7:30 – speak to a friend about three actions towards my goals (in whatever area of life) for the day. We’ve been doing this for almost six years, though usually later in the morning and that was hard because it sometimes felt like an interruption to the flow of my day. I really like speaking briefly at this time.

7:30 – 8 am – take a walk with my husband – this has the added benefit of both of us getting exercise and enjoying being in nature, since we try to stick to the quieter back roads as much as possible.

By the time I get home at 8, I’ve already had time for personal reflection, spiritual connection, spousal connection, focus on goals with a friend, and physical exercise, in addition to getting the kids up and out, which always feels like an accomplishment. I usually throw a load of clothes in the washing machine right before waking the kids up, and as soon as I get back from my walk I hang it up.

Though the house always needs to be organized at this point, and I don’t like to do other things when things aren’t in order, I’m disciplining myself to sit down and work on whatever actions are most important to me while my mind is still fresh and I have a good bit of ability to focus. There are always phone calls to make, dishes to wash or arrangements of some sort to take care of, but I put them off until I’ve done the things that require concentrated focus. This slot is what I reserve for working on bigger personal goals that need time and focused attention.

My mornings set me up for feeling good about my day as soon as I get up, and this schedule is working really well for me at this point.

I’m considering creating a relaxed evening routine that would ease into going to sleep, also something that I do every day so it becomes automatic. The purpose wouldn’t be to fill my evening with activities, but to support myself in consistently having a relaxed and peaceful evening that feels emotionally nourishing to me. While most nights I do a meditation before going to sleep, prior to that I tend to be unfocused and waste time due to tiredness and lack of clarity about what I want to be doing. So it would be helpful to sit down and clarify for myself what actions at that time would be supportive.

Avivah

Letting go of being Superwoman and setting goals for the new year

personal development

For years, people have thrown around the term ‘Superwoman’ to refer to me, which I’ve strongly pushed back against. There’s no such thing as Superwoman; it’s a false construct and believing someone can do it all is a fallacy.

But lately, for the first time I can remember, I’ve been thinking to myself, “I feel like Superwoman!”

The amount of things I’ve been accomplishing is off the charts, and other than a nap midday I’m going and going – really doing things, not just being awake – from 4:45 am until I go to sleep by 11pm. (Well, to be perfectly honest, the hours after 7 pm are low energy times and I don’t get much done then.)

I don’t generally find wedding planning daunting, but less than a month before the wedding it became apparent I would need to plan the entire wedding from scratch. That was during the most busy time of the summer with all of the children home, as well as having married children and grandchildren visiting, in addition to the many appointments I was taking children to.

The wedding took place on Friday, Sept. 13; it was beautiful. Thank G-d, another beautiful couple has joined our family!

My husband and me with our son

One thing that has been taking a good chunk of my time is a course that has been more intensive than I anticipated – the time I’ve needed to keep up has been double what I was told to expect. I’m enjoying it but the pace has been a stress at times.

Today I was at our weekly speech therapy appointment with ds12 and ds7.5 when I met a neighbor of the clinic. We got to talking and he mentioned he’s involved with alternative health; I asked him about what that means specifically and he said he works with energy.

I asked him some questions and he told me that some people are very closed, but then there are people like me who are easy to read. I asked him what he saw about me; he said a few accurate points, the first of which is that I have a lot of forward moving energy and it’s something that I need to balance.

For me this cautionary note very much resonated because with all that I already am doing, I’m thinking of moving into an arena that I’m very interested in but will require a lot of time and commitment. I want to do it as it aligns with goals that are important and meaningful to me, but at the same time it feels like a big push and I’m hesitant to pack my schedule too full. I’m efficient; I use my time consciously and well. Everything has gotten done and I don’t feel frenetic or harried. But I’m clear that I shouldn’t keep doing so much every day, even though I can. A high level of action was necessary for this season but I’d like to embrace a more relaxed schedule – time to say goodbye to Superwoman!

I love many aspects of my current schedule; I’ve prioritized the elements that are most important to me and my mornings are particularly fulfilling and productive. I have time for prayer, meditation, reflection, exercise, time with my husband, connection with a friend, and in the middle of it get my four youngest children ready for school with everyone usually in a positive state of mind.

This time of year is always when I think about goals and intentions for the coming year. For many years I knew I was moving forward but had no way to measure it or recognize the changes I made. Once I started setting concrete goals, it made it possible to see the improvements year upon year and that’s very gratifying.

I’m still in the process of setting my goals for the coming year. All of the above considerations are part of the process: am I trying to do too much? Can I move towards this significant personal goal without putting too much pressure on myself? How can I recalibrate my expectations of myself so I can make progress without getting discouraged if I don’t see the results I want as soon as I hope?

I’ve been repeatedly reminded that the focus shouldn’t be on the outcome, but on the process. We can’t measure our success by what we accomplish, but by who we become in the process of pursuing the goal. The effort is what matters, the end result isn’t in our control.

I’d love to hear if you have a time and approach to goal setting that’s been helpful for you – what do you do, and how do you do it?

Avivah

New wedding hall scheduled!

parenting, personal development

In the past I’ve been matter of fact when reserving a wedding hall, but this time, I cheered out loud after putting down the phone and finding out a hall was available for the date we wanted.

We found something quickly and easily, and I’m relieved and grateful to have a spacious and comfortable hall that will amply accommodate all of our guests. My hope is that everyone involved will feel it is a joyous and expansive event.

I have already reserved the hall and caterer, and sent the advance partial payment to each, and contacted the band to let them know about the location change.

In the last few weeks, every time I spoke with my son about wedding plans, he’d ask me what was happening and sounded stressed. I kept trying to be reassuring, saying, “It’s fine, I’m not organizing it but someone else is; this is what’s happening and it’s going to be done.” When I told him the night of my last post that I had spoken to his kallah and was considering a location change, I expected him to sound even more stressed.

I was surprised that he was very chilled and positive about the possibility. He had absolutely no concern about the location being changed at this late stage.

The next morning, I called my son to tell him I found a wedding hall available for the date we wanted. When I told him which it was, he told me it was the hall he liked most! I had no idea – after they got engaged I asked what he preferred as far as a hall, and he said he didn’t really care, as long as his kallah was happy.

But he did care. So finding out I was about to reserve the hall he was most partial to added to my happiness.

I spoke to him later that day and updated him, letting him know I had booked the hall and the caterer, and filling him in on some other details. He sounded pleased about it all. I told him, “I don’t understand. Every time I spoke to you about wedding plans, you sounded stressed; now I’m making these changes at this point, and you sound so relaxed and calm. Why?”

He told me that now that I’m in charge of arranging the details, he feels more relaxed because I have a lot of experience.

My energy has shifted from being uneasy about the wedding to feeling relaxed and positive again. It wasn’t easy for me to speak up – it really was unpleasant to bring up concerns that could inconvenience and frustrate others because of the late date – but I’m so glad I did. I was concerned there was a likelihood for a lot of frustration with so many different details to coordinate in making a non-wedding hall into a wedding hall. I hope that it will be a relaxed and enjoyable wedding for everyone.

Avivah

PS – You may be wondering about how much more this upgrade is going to cost. We’ll actually be spending a drop less for a much larger and nicer hall, double the guests for the meal and a couple of nicer touches that we weren’t going to have before, as well as the planning being much more streamlined. Isn’t that nice?

Wedding jitters and thinking of changing the hall location

personal development

I’ve been feeling increasingly on edge about the wedding preparations over the last few weeks. That’s unusual for me; this is our sixth wedding and I find the planning generally to be straightforward. Additionally, I don’t have a lot of emotion wrapped up in the specifics.

This time we’re planning for the wedding to be in a smaller hall that isn’t usually used for weddings. The initial thinking in considering that was our expectation that our guest list would be smaller than at our other weddings, and I didn’t want to rattle around in a typical hall. From there we went on to consider that it would be a big gain for the couple to enjoy the savings resulting from a wedding on a smaller scale.

That was the idea, but that’s not how it’s working out. The costs involved are either the same or much, much higher than at a larger hall. That means that a wedding for 150 will cost almost the same as a wedding for 300. That’s because there aren’t the economies of scale for a smaller hall that are standard for the larger halls.

More and more concerns have been coming up for me but until now I’ve repeatedly pushed them down, telling myself at least the couple will be happy. And after all, isn’t it their wedding?

Yes, but it’s a celebration for the parents as well. Sometimes parents go overboard and it’s not at all about what the couple wants, but on the flip side, sometimes as parents we minimize our own preferences in planning a celebration.

It wasn’t initially clear how things would play out with the choice for the smaller hall and knowing what we now know, it wouldn’t have been an option.

Obviously it would have been much better if my concerns had been clear to me earlier on, but they weren’t. The initial assumptions I was operating under kept shifting bit by bit, until all that remained of the suggestion my husband and I originally made was the smaller hall. As more and more things come up to complicate the use of this location, my unease has increased.

I didn’t want to ruin anyone’s contentment with what was being planned, and though I did express my concerns several times about what was being planned, I didn’t stay with the conversation and communicate until my position was clear enough. Part of that was my own ambiguity, and the other part was not wanting to seem nitpicky or controlling. So I kept pushing down the concernes that were coming up. Finally, I just couldn’t push them down anymore and all I felt when thinking of the wedding was stress, instead of happiness and excitement.

So what to do at this point, four weeks before the wedding?

The easiest thing for me to do is to continue to smile and agree to whatever everyone else wants. However, I’ve always regretted ignoring my gut feelings and always pay the price later on; right now my inner voice is screaming that this is a big mistake and needs to be reconsidered because the wedding isn’t going to be a good experience for our family. But if I say something, am I going to be that controlling mother-in-law imposing her preferences on the couple?

Despite my very strong reluctance, I knew I needed to have some uncomfortable conversations.

I called my daughter-in-law-to-be to share some concerns and get clarity on what her priorities for the wedding are. (Her mother is overseas so she’s the one actively making the decisions for the wedding planning.) Until now we haven’t directly talked about the plans; her preferences were conveyed to me through a local family member. I stressed to her that I’m absolutely not saying we need to make a change in location, but that I’d just like to bring up some concerns.

She’s very lovely and was willing to listen though I’m sure that wasn’t easy. I was really concerned that she would feel an imbalance of power in the conversation due to my position in the family. But she handled it beautifully and I was very impressed with her equanimity.

She was able to listen to my concerns, consider them, and then called me back to say that she heard my points and is willing to look at other locations, if we can still find a hall available for four weeks from now.

So that’s what I’ll be busy with in the morning, making calls and with Hashem’s help we’ll quickly and easily find a hall that will be more aligned with the feelings of happiness and positivity that we feel when celebrating a wedding.

Avivah

Running low on patience and reprogramming my thoughts

parenting, personal development

I always have a full schedule but the last month has been over- the-top busy.

I recently noticed that I’m overreacting to things the kids are doing that I don’t like. Yes, sometimes whatever it is is annoying, but I have demonstrated high levels of patience and forbearance in situations much more challenging than these. So I know it’s not the situation that’s the problem, but something about me.

When reflecting on this, I realized two things:

Realization 1: I have too many time dependent activities I need to be at with the kids. I’ve known for years about myself that time pressure brings out my absolute worst qualities, and to compensate, try to build margin around time dependent activities and schedule them cautiously.

Well, cautious scheduling is not what I have going on now. There are many appointments to take care of in addition to extracurricular summer activities for the kids at home in Camp Mommy, and I’ve been out daily with the kids at these different commitments. I realized, I’ve got too much going on and I’ve got to cut this down.

All of the doctor/dental/hearing test stuff has to be done, as do visitations with the twins’ parents, a National Insurance committee meeting to determine eligibility for ds6 since the country is changing the rules of child allowances for foster children, social worker visits, preparatory school meetings – but I have changed what I can and that has made a difference.

In the last week we’ve finished the swimming lessons that had us out three days a week, and cancelled horseback riding, which I had only recently begun two weeks before. (That decision deserves a post of its own because it was a very empowering choice.)

I enjoy going out with the kids daily for some kind of activity, particularly now that it’s the Nine Days and they can’t use the pool. Going out breaks up our day and is a nice change of pace for us all. It’s not a time pressure when it’s dependent on me, I can go where and when I want, and stay as long or as short a time as I want.

A couple of recent outings included:

Playing with newborn puppies- We were invited by one of our Shabbos guests to come visit his newborn puppies. The puppies still had their eyes shut and were crawling around; we were there quite a long time and the kids enjoyed them very much. We were invited to come regularly to play with them and we will probably go back, but I won’t make a commitment to a regular day or time because I don’t want to create pressure for myself.

Ds7 with a puppy
Ds6 and dd6 with puppies

Another trip was to the public sprinklers in the center of Tiberias. We packed a picnic lunch and the kids had a wonderful time. It’s fascinating to watch how much enjoyment children can generate with almost no props – other than two plastic bags they found, it was just the sprinklers. But they played with the water in various ways, had different kinds of races with one another, and just kept finding new ways to entertain themselves in this one area.

I find that the lower key an activity is, the less expectation and pressure there is and the more enjoyment we all have. This morning I was thinking of taking the kids to the cable cars in Haifa, but hesitated, wondering if it would be worth the effort to find parking and then the money spent. Instead, I took them to a park in the city we were in that I found after cruising around for just a few minutes. The park was built on a steep hill so there were four levels to the park – each level had just a couple of items on it; there was nothing spectacular or especially engaging about any individual part of it. But the kids loved going from one level to another, and we spent almost three hours there.

Realization 2: I have been recognizing that I’m using all of my patience in the course of a day and don’t have extra margin. And that’s true.

It’s also true that our physical capacities are affected by our thoughts, and I’m disempowering myself by defining myself as having my patience maxxed out, and mentally going over all the things I’m doing to explain to myself why I’m feeling my patience is wearing thin.

I was out with the kids for eight hours today – it was a really good day for everyone but tiring as well. I was driving home at the end of all of the activities and the thought flashed through my mind, “I’m so tired.” Then I caught myself and asked myself, why am I telling myself that? Why not think about how energized I am by the things I do, how blessed I am to have plenty of energy to do all that I need to do, how patient and loving a parent I am? That’s a much more helpful focus and feels a lot better, and it’s just the flip side of the same coin. We can focus on what isn’t and what we aren’t, or on what we is good and what we want to be.

Can you see how thinking the two different sets of thoughts will impact how a person feels?

I truly have a lot going on now, that requires me to carefully and proactively schedule commitments to myself and others in to my planner so that everything gets done and I still get sleep. I burned the candle at both ends for too many years, and I choose not to shortchange myself in that way anymore.

Every day when I start to feel a little tense about how much I’m doing, I remind myself how grateful I am that I can do the things that are important to me, that my schedule is full of things that are meaningful and stimulating for me. And I mean it. But you can’t say it too often!

Avivah

Why did hardly anyone in real life wish me mazel tov?

personal development

Friendship is something I’ve been thinking a lot about in the last week since my son got engaged.

The engagement was announced first thing in the morning on our community email list. One neighbor came over to say mazel tov. One person called.

And that was it. There was a huge, empty silence at the time we would have loved to have felt surrounded by the shared happiness of friends. It felt like people didn’t care.

I have good relationships with all of the women in our small community, and wondered why almost no one felt it was significant enough to pick up a phone, send an email, or even text a quick, “Mazel tov!”? Is twenty seconds too much time to spend on someone else?

All of these people probably had a thought of ‘how nice’ when they heard about the engagement. But it didn’t translate into any kind of action. I’m not going to analyze what has changed in the communication styles of people in the world at large though I think that’s the biggest factor.

I spoke to someone else who has been in the community much longer than I have and commented that something has changed in the years since I moved here, and this experience of mine reflected that. We seem to feel less connected to one another than we used to be. She agreed.

It’s not just my community that’s changed. There’s been a worldwide shift in how people communicate and people are becoming more comfortable interacting with a screen rather than real-life people. Though my community is much lighter on the tech than most, nonetheless we’ve been affected by the overall trends.

If you don’t like what you see in the society around you, you can feel like a victim, and be hurt or angry or insulted. Of you can recognize that if you want to see something different in the world around you, it begins with the person you see in the mirror.

I looked inwardly and asked myself, do I make that effort that I wished people would have made for me?

The answer was quick in coming – in a lot of ways I do, but when it comes to calling to verbally convey congratulations, that’s far from my strong suit. Making phone calls is a very weak point of mine and something I procrastinate a lot about. I’ve become less communally engaged than I was in the past, and can justify that in a number of ways, including saying how busy I am, and that the amount of people I have in my family to interact with takes all of my time and energy.

I could say that, and it’s true, but it’s not the complete truth. Everyone makes time for what’s important to him, and for various reasons I’ve put community effort on a back burner.

That same day my son’s engagement was posted, I learned that the son of someone I casually know had gotten engaged. She’s not in my community or someone that I’m particularly close with, but I know her enough that my call would be appreciated.

It took me three days but I picked up the thousand pound phone to make what ended up being an eight minute phone call, and made someone else feel seen and that their celebration was being shared. When I saw a sibling of the engaged man pulling out of the parking space, I jumped out of my car to stop her and congratulate her in person. Both of them were surprised and appreciative.

I also asked myself, what would make me feel connected to the people I know care about me, the friends I have many years of history with? I sat down over two nights and wrote personal emails to good friends in different parts of the world, sharing our good news. In the past I’ve sent out a standard email announcement to lots of people at once, which isn’t the same as an individualized message.

I don’t speak often to friends overseas – quite rarely, actually. It’s my phone issue again; add in the time difference and the busyness of everyone’s life, and easily a year or two goes by without speaking. In response to my email, two friends asked to schedule a time to talk in the next few days, which we did.

I have deep concern about how people are becoming increasingly isolated from one another, but just because it’s happening in society at large doesn’t mean I need to mindlessly participate. And I certainly don’t have to take it personally. I can look for ways to increase my own sense of social well-being and interconnectedness, and that’s what I’m going to continue to do.

Avivah