Do you know what your specific test in life is?

amother

Denim

Wed, Sep 09 2020, 9:08 pm

ExtraCredit wrote:

Perhaps your test is to put up boundaries and not let yourself be depleted by smiling kaparos?

Sigh.
That’s what dh says.
I do, but they’re really one of a kind.
Like anything goes.
And if it was up to dh he’d cut off ties a long time ago... he says if they can do whatever they want then so can we.
But I was raised to always make things work literally no matter what so that’s ingrained and so I’m always the stupid good girl trying to hold things together.
Anyway.
I don’t want to hijack this thread, back to OP.
Thanks for validating!

amother

Wed, Sep 09 2020, 10:27 pm

amother [ Seagreen ] wrote:

I struggle with a lot of things. So?
And what I struggle with changes from day to day as well as over time. My biggest challenge at 16 was not my biggest challenge at 30 and my biggest challenge at 30 is not likely to be my biggest challenge at 65. Again: So?

No it was explained to me that if Theres a certain sin you have trouble controlling throughout your life then that’s something you are meant to fix. Not just a struggle. Everyone has struggles.

amother

Turquoise

Wed, Sep 09 2020, 10:31 pm

zaq wrote:

I can't see that it's a sin as long as you do fulfill the mitzvah. I'd say it's more one of your "tests." As long as you don't transgress, you pass. We're supposed to love the mitzvot, and probably you get extra credit for performing them with love, but I can't help thinking that you should also get extra credit if you perform them despite not loving them at all.

Thank you that actually makes me feel better

amother

Natural

Wed, Sep 09 2020, 11:33 pm

To live a life with hashem in the center and act and do what He would have me do and be without questioning. Complete faith and trust that He knows and is doing what is best for me and I just have to work on talking and connecting to Him and keeping His will with me at all times. The details change the essence stays the same always!

salt

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 1:41 am

But OP, what you are saying (I think) can be explained simply as follows:

Our 'tafkid' in life is to perform mitzvot and to do the will of Hashem.
So some of this 'tafkid' we perform easily (that which comes easily to us), and some bits are harder. So if we want to fulfill our tafkid to the full, we need to work harder on the things that are more difficult for us.
But in the long run, each Jew's tafkid is to do 'ratzon hashem'.

Teomima

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 4:56 am

Tafkid in Hebrew is role, so your tafkid in life would mean your role, your job, not your test.

I feel like my role, my job, is to be the best mother I can be. Raising my children is, to me, for me, the most important task in my life.

My main test is something totally different. My marriage is by far the hardest, most difficult, most challenging thing in my life. But I would not consider my marriage to be my tafkid. It's something I chose to do, yes, but overcoming its challenges is not the goal nor purpose of my life.

amother

Seagreen

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 10:43 am

amother [ Goldenrod ] wrote:

I think mine is learning to be patient with and nice to people who either have an IQ of 85-125,

But if that's my tafkid, I'm going to be back here for another gilgul.

You must be a VERY superior intelligence, because IQ 120-125 is in the superior, well-above-average range. And I see exactly why you believe you'll be back.

amother

Seagreen

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 11:04 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

No it was explained to me that if Theresa certain sin you have trouble controlling throughout your life then that’s something you are meant to fix. Not just a struggle. Everyone has struggles.

I understood you perfectly. I used the term struggle because I don't care for the term sin. I don't mean struggling to keep your checkbook balanced or your house clean. let me clarify. At 30, you may have a hard time with taharas hamishpacha and you may not always keep it as you should. by the time you're 65, unless you're a medical anomaly, that's probably no longer an issue. maybe at 20 you're holding a grudge against the mean girls in high school and by 40 you've let that go, or your lack of kibbud av vaem at 16 has reversed itself by the time you're 50.

Who says there's necessarily a single issue that will dog you all the days of your life? and if there is, chances are it's something like anger, jealousy or lust, which are sins but not JUST sins; they are also personality traits.

There's nothing magical here: we're to strive for self-improvement no matter what it is. Of course you're meant to fix the sins you have trouble controlling. There's nothing to fix if something isn't a problem. Not many of us these days need to work on our worship of foreign gods, but many of us might need to work on our covetousness. But either way, I wouldn't call that a person's life mission.

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 11:13 am

amother [ Seagreen ] wrote:

You must be a VERY superior intelligence, because IQ 120-125 is in the superior, well-above-average range. And I see exactly why you believe you'll be back.

Aww, you're sweet. Thanks.

I've found that 110-125 are the ones who think they're smarter than the experts. Once you get above that, people usually have a bit more humility and wisdom, and start recognizing the line between what they know and what they don't know.

You'll be happy to hear that I've made a lot of progress in how I treat people, and that I don't tend to gossip.

amother

Sapphire

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 11:25 am

I'm not buying any of this. I think any of attempt to understand hashems ways in a specific way is fake. We don't know why anything happens. It's easy to say when a person has a struggle that that's their "tafkid". Who really knows? For example my great grandmother who passed away last year in her mid 90's was in a coma the last 6 months of her life. Can anyone explain her tafkid those last 6 months? And just like we can't explain the last 6 months, we also can't explain explain the previous 94 years.

amother

Amber

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 12:53 pm

I noticed a trend in my life, I do struggle with Emes. I can trace the trouble back to traumatic events that happened in my early childhood that are still with me... But the things that were done to me - I now believe that Hashem had it happen so that I would develop with these specific traits and so that I would need to learn to overcome them. (Not absolving blame for a perpetrator, just saying that I believe I would have developed personality and internally as a different person otherwise).

Every day is a struggle. I don't always win. But when I do - in small ways - I celebrate inside, and I recognize that I'm getting closer to the 'me that I'm supposed to be.'

*Just my perspective on my own experiences, not applying this to anyone else.

amother

Burlywood

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 12:56 pm

amother [ Goldenrod ] wrote:

How do you know IQ levels of random people? (I don't even know my own Surprised

)

amother

Goldenrod

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 1:05 pm

amother [ Burlywood ] wrote:

How do you know IQ levels of random people? (I don't even know my own Surprised

)

I can't give an exact number for people on the street, but when you speak to someone it's usually clear where on the curve they fall, approximately - whether they are 100 abouts, or 110, or 120, or 130+. After that it gets a bit blurry but you can still pick out the 140+ crowd from the 130s. Around 140 or so it becomes irrelevant.

amother

Green

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 1:24 pm

1. Living with a difficult husband - very critical. At one point on verge of divorce but decided not, mainly for my kids sake. I learned to develop a thick skin and ignore the verbal abuse, showing that I don't care what DH says.

AND THE VERBAL ABUSE STOPPED - it is very rare. Hashem helped. Also showing I didn't care.

2. Living in poverty. We don't own a house or car. Never go on vacations or eat out.
But BH I have the necessities - always had enough what to eat, decent clothing - Hashem helps me
find beautiful metzios, and my children went to camp and made good shidduchim.

Life is challenging. I read Holocaust books and it doesn't make me depressed but GRATEFUL
that I have religious freedom and enough to eat.

Other people have worse problems like health (cancer) or infertility or children off the derech.

I am happy for the many blessings I have.

Nobody has a problem free life.

Success10

Thu, Sep 10 2020, 1:56 pm

amother [ Pumpkin ] wrote:

How do you know? It might very well be.

I think a person's tafkid is something within themselves that needs to corrected, not something outside of them. So Hashem might send us challenges, like certain children or spouses, but those things are only to tune us into the middah that needs tikun. Those things are only there to help us fulfull our tafkid, but they are not THE tafkid.