The truth is we all will fall time & again. The secret is to not view it negatively. Because life is only truly negative if we don’t use our fall toward elevation. If falling back pushes us forward, it’s a powerful tool towards transcendence. Just living, in & of itself, presents challenges, & each challenge is an opportunity to get it right the next time. If we can greet hate with love, our life can change; if we don’t, we tend to stay stuck in a cycle that doesn’t feel aligned. As Mac Miller so eloquently sang on ‘Hurt Feelings’, “You been going through it, I just go around it.” This touches on the concept of the Maharash’s: l’chatchila ariber, he would say, “The world says that if you cannot crawl under an obstacle, try to leap over it. However, I say, leap over it in the first place!” So, when we are faced with challenges, our attitude towards them can affect the very challenge itself.

Dealing with negative situations by reacting with hope & curiosity rather than cynicism & depression allows us to change the circumstance for the better. This is done when we remind ourselves that everything is in the hands of Hashem & somehow, even if we can’t fully understand it, everything is for our own good in the long run. We can’t often see that our challenge is for the purpose of our growth & often to change the path that we are on. Of course, this is all to be applied internally. It’s something we have to master to muster the love of life even in the hard times. When it comes to those around us going through their own journeys, we should always respond to their hardships only with compassion.

The Rebbe says, “we have only, by faith, to compensate for those moments of faithlessness.” I’ve always seen time as a figment of a fractured world, a perspective limited by finitude. Tapping into faith while eliminating doubt brings the expansion of an ever-broadening spiritual reality. It’s only by that expansion & unification with the Divine consciousness that each person can tap into the light of the Infinite, our Godly soul, unbound by time.