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                                                 MEYER "MICKEY" LANIADO A'H

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         Things don’t always work out the way you plan. You may think that you can direct your own destiny, but time and time again you find that something can and will go wrong.

How a person reacts is the real test of a human being. Some people throw a tantrum—screaming, complaining, or even cursing those they perceive as having brought on the disastrous mistake. Others sink into numbness and depression; unable to fix what is wrong, they wallow in emotional quicksand until they are totally immersed in mental mud. There are some who analyze; but after examining a problem from many angles, they ultimately fail to implement a corrective plan to prevent a future recurrence.

A friend of mine reacts constructively to problems, especially those that are pervasive. The more people the problem affects—the more it paralyzes an industry or a geographical area—the more he is inspired to rise to the occasion. “You see,” he once told me, “when you order milk to make cheese and someone delivers lemons, you just make lemonade instead.” His philosophy is a sound one: Do the best with the cards you are dealt.

When plans go awry, and what you hoped would happen just doesn’t occur, take the opportunity to spin a negative into a positive. For example, snow may cripple travel, but it is a bonanza for those who own trucks with plows and profit from cleaning the streets. A rainy day may upset children anticipating a trip to the amusement park or the beach, but it is a profitable day for those who manufacture and sell bad-weather gear and apparel. Every negative has a positive, and every downside has an up. Look for the positive, and use it to turn what might be a worst-case scenario into a best.

DID YOU KNOW THAT
It is forbidden to chew gum on fast days. It is permitted to smoke cigarettes on a fast day but on Tisha B'Ab it is better not to smoke because it gives the smoker pleasure. A healthy person who is fasting who needs to take a pill for a headache etc is permitted to swallow the pill without water. If the medicine is chewable and it has flavor one should not take it on the fast day. Torat haMoadim, chap 1, 12:13

CONSIDER THIS FOR A MINUTE

The Sefer Hayashar relates a conversation between a man and himself.

“My heart, oh, my heart, don’t you know that you were created with a destiny to return to the earth; from the time you were created why didn’t you think of your end? Consider that all the time you will spend in this world is like a fleeting shadow, or like a piece of weightless chaff being blown in the wind, or like smoke rising skyward from a skylight. Your days pass rapidly and they are limited in number—and every day you get closer to your grave.” (Sefer HaYashar, by Rabenu Zerachyah)

A person who keeps these thoughts in mind will not fritter life away on senseless frivolity.