The Secret To Success

Who is the successful person in life? By success I mean in business, relationships, learning or ANYTHING.

The COMMITTED person is the successful person. Why do I have no money while many of my friends are multi-millionaires? Is it because they are smarter of better connected? I don't believe so. It is because they are COMMITTED to earning money while I am not at all [for better or for worse. I am committed to other things to which they are often not...].

Why did your wife marry you? Because she thought that you were COMMITTED to the relationship. Why is your marriage not what it should be [in all likelihood]? PART of the problem is that you are not committed enough to making it work. The other obligations [real or imagined] you have take their toll.

Why are so many people I know almost completely ignorant when it comes to Torah? People even in their 40' 50's and 60's who after all these years still can't properly read a gemara. Yerushalmi and many other basic sources they have never touched and even something so basic as Tanach is for the most part unknown to them. These are people who profess to be religious and believers in the eternal overarching value of Torah study yet on weekends when they have dozens of free hours, the only sefer they open is a siddur for davening and a chumash for krias ha-torah and that's it. They KNOW that Torah is more important and will bear them much more fruit in the present and future than any other plans they have yet they neglect to learn. The answer, once again, is commitment. People are just not committed to achieving stardom in Torah. If they would be, then their lives would undergo a revolution.

People start chavrusas but don't keep to them. People attend a shiur once twice and suddenly they find more pressing things to do. Even in yeshivos, boys switch from shiur to shiur and from chavrusa to chavrusa and even from yeshiva to yeshiva. They never really have a rebbi [even tough they profess to want and need one] because they can't commit to the talmid rebbi relationship [all relationships require commitment, not only marriage].

So sweet friends - if you want to succeed in life then decide what is important to you and commit. Commit to never missing a minyan. Commit to doing chesed on a set basis; to helping people who might not need your help only once but on an ongoing basis. Commit to be there for your wife and children. Decide what you want to learn and commit to learning it no matter what. You will find that the feeling of structure and consistency will be a great boon to your fragile psyche and after an extended period you will be greatly pleased with the results.

Most importantly - you will give nachas ruach to the borei who created you to commit. The gemara in brachos [61a] says that this world was created for complete reshaim and the next world for complete tzadikim. This means that this world was created for those who are completely devoted and committed to this world with no thought of any other world or reward and punishment [complete reshaim] while the next world was created for those who are completely devoted to that place without any regard for the falsehood of this world [complete tzadikim]. The principle is the same; true success [even to evil G-d forbid] requires commitment. Read the biography of ANY great person in ANY field and you will find that without commitment he would never have reached such an elevated plateau.

Let us commit and become great למען השם עמו ותורתו!