Passover is the holiday of freedom. Freedom is the ability to expand and grow beyond one’s perceived limitations. In Hebrew, the word Egypt means “narrow.” Egypt was a place that limited human potential and enslaved the will. Freedom from one’s personal Egypt is the experience of expanding and moving beyond one’s personal limitations by harnessing and liberating one’s will.
A person’s personal Egypt is the pain of wanting to improve oneself in a specific way, but feeling powerless to bring about that change. Perhaps one has tried many times to improve something, but all efforts have failed and now feels stuck and hopeless.
Gary has struggled with loving people and feeling connected to them for as long as he can remember. He has tried so many techniques hoping one of them would result in the breakthrough he longs for. He has a pattern of learning about some tool for loving people, getting excited about it, and after two weeks or so, quitting, as he realizes it’s not working for him. Recently, he read about a technique called the “love game.” The suggestion is to study someone closely and make a list of five virtues that person possesses. Love being defined in this context as the pleasure we get when we identify someone with their virtues and excuse their faults. Gary once again felt a rush of excitement because the idea made so much sense. Unfortunately, after two weeks, he ran out of gas again. Feeling like a loser, he felt resigned to living a life of disconnection.
Gary is not alone. I think all of us can identify with Gary’s frustration. There are aspects about who we are that we so badly want to change, but have given-up, feeling resigned to living with our limitations.
Our rabbis taught, “Nothing can stand in the way of one’s will.” We have the power to improve ourselves in any way we want to. Eighty years ago, Rabbi Eliahu Dessler revealed that the secret of liberating one’s will is to identify where one’s free-will point lies or what I call “our personal points of real possibility.” One’s true free-will point is that small step that one can comfortably make and make consistently. What’s implied here is that there always exists some meaningful change that a person can make. Such a change will always be so small that one may very well be inclined to feel that it’s not much of an accomplishment. Actually, the opposite is true. Making any real change, no matter how small, will always feel significant and deeply fulfilling. This is the “power of small.” And it is the power of small that liberates an imprisoned will and promotes authentic growth and transformation.
A significant reason why people feel powerless and hopeless about self-improvement is that they consistently set the bar too high with goals that are impossible for them to reach. The rabbis tell us, “If you try to grab too much you will end up with nothing.” Unfortunately, we live in a culture that is in love with great and dramatic accomplishments and life coaches and mentors who encourage us to go for the gold. For many people, this is a formula for chronic frustration and depression. One must be very careful about setting the bar beyond one’s free-will point as it can result in what I call self-improvement burn-out.
Why do we set goals that are beyond our personal points of real possibility? Here are
four reasons:
1. Not knowing ourselves and not accepting our limitations, leaves us vulnerable to
being influenced by the surrounding culture that tells us to keep raising the bar;
2. Comparing ourselves with others and competing with others distracts us from
being honest with ourselves;
3. Insecurity and low self-esteem breed grandiosity and perfectionism. We strive
for greatness to compensate for our insecurities; and
4. Pressure from important people in our lives such as spouses, bosses, religious
leaders, teachers, and friends who “demand” we perform at a level we are
incapable.
To identify and own one’s true point of real possibility requires honesty and humility
because as I said, our true points of possibility will always be very, very small
movements. In fact, when we zero in on these points, we may well be inclined to react by
saying, “Is this all I’m capable of?” The truth hurts, but the truth liberates!
Gary’s real problem was that he was always setting the bar beyond his free-will point.
The tools he had tried were out of his range of real possibilities. If Gary were honest
with himself, he would discover that his free-will point would be a very small change.
Fortunately, with some guidance, Gary discovered where his free-will point was. Once a
day he would greet one person with a sincere and genuine smile. When he received a
nice smile in return, he felt connected and more positive about that person. After, a
month, Gary was astonished by the way he felt about himself and others. He was feeling
empowered and convinced that he could maintain this change without pushing himself
overly hard. Once Gary felt he had mastered this change, he felt ready to raise the bar a
notch. He even felt that he could begin thinking about looking for virtues in others as his
next step in loving people.
This approach to growth is truly liberating. The power of small is ultimately about living
in reality and not in a fantasy world dreaming about great possibilities which are well
beyond one’s personal potential and only serve to fuel one’s grandiosity. Are you feeling
frustrated and stuck? Perhaps you have been setting your bar of personal improvement
too high and need to take an honest look at yourself.
The way out of our personal Egypt is to take very small steps that are located at our free-
will points, because small is how one harnesses and liberates one’s will. If we
understand this principle, we will understand why the sages say, “Nothing can stand in
the way of one’s will.”