If Not Going Up, You’re Going Down

Why is getting blessed or getting cursed a zero-sum game? Shouldn’t there be the middle ground of not getting cursed or not getting blessed? The story of Balaam and Balak is most definitely zero sum: either blessings or curses. Why is it that the planned curses had to change into blessings? Wouldn’t it have been enough if the Jewish nation simply avoided being cursed?

Maybe it was to show us about the nature of life and the concept of neutrality, as in life, one is either moving upward and being blessed, or downward. Imagine life as a heart monitor. The squiggly lines on the monitor signify that there is life. A flat line, on the other hand, signifies death. In life, we cannot afford to be like a flat line. When Balaam attempted to curse the Jewish nation, the transformation of those curses into blessings showed us that we, as a people, are meant to continually go upwards. We are either progressing and growing or regressing; there is no standing still.

The most neutral thing I hear when asking someone how life is going is “same old, same old” or “the usual”. The reality is, that no one that I know of “happy cruising through life”, is someone I can point out to my daughter and say that this is a person of accomplishment. To stay neutral is a move backward. Growth requires commitment, and, more importantly, continuous effort.

The story of Balaam and Balak shows that you’re either blessed or cursed. Up or down. There’s no middle ground where you’re just not cursed and every moment of our lives, we choose to grow and get better, or risk falling into lazy neutral and a life of non-progressiveness (no, not the hijacked word progressive, I mean the word progressive in its correct term).

Looking back at many of my life’s crossroads, too often, I convinced myself that cruising and stability in life meant progress and I wrongly believed that merely avoiding negativity is sufficient. Yes, sometimes in life one needs to “pause” or “cruise” for a bit of time to enable stable ground to move forward, but if the bit of time turns into a lifestyle, it’s a problem. Staying in a job, lifestyle, social circle or environment because its comfortable and “medium” is wrong. The “it’s the only thing I have stable in my life” line, is often simply an excuse to legitimize the decision to stay. Life demands movement. Yes, there will be mistakes along the road. But if we choose to ascend and to live life that you can look back at when you are old and be proud of the life you have lived, we will recognize that in the journey of life, standing still is not an option. We are either moving forward and being blessed or falling behind.

To quote Harvey Spector from the TV show Suits “Life is this…. I like this”.

The choice is ours.

Shabbat Shalom!