Episode 113 - Stop Chasing Perfection And Start Talking To God

The world is noisy, and it’s getting harder to tell what’s true, what’s fear, and what’s just distraction. We sit down and wrestle with one of the most practical faith questions there is: if God knows what I’m going to do next, do I actually have free will? Instead of getting stuck in abstract philosophy, we bring Torah wisdom down to street level with a simple analogy and a message that can change how you approach your day. 

We also share a powerful reminder about suffering and “wake-up calls,” including a preview of a friend’s upcoming story about receiving a serious diagnosis and seeing open miracles through a deeper relationship with the Creator. From there we explore Pirkei Avot, divine judgment balanced with mercy, and the Rambam’s surprising idea that the person who constantly weighs their actions and asks “what will my next choice do?” is already considered righteous. That shift takes the pressure off perfection and puts the focus back where it belongs: honest effort, responsibility, and growth. 

Then we get intensely practical with a daily emunah routine that supports spiritual life and mental health: one hour a day for self-evaluation, penitence, and personal prayer (hitbodedut). We talk about why comparing yourself to curated social media “perfection” is a trap, how repentance is completed through repair, and why speaking to God is the glue that makes faith real, lowers stress, and builds lasting happiness. 

If this helped you, subscribe to Trust Factor, share it with someone who needs clarity right now, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations.

Transcript

Welcome And Listener Gratitude

SPEAKER_01 0:22

The world is louder and more chaotic than ever. That's why clarity and truth have never been more important. Welcome to the Trust Factor Podcast. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Trust Factor Podcast. I want to thank everybody from the bottom of my heart because you've been listening, you've been following, you've been commenting. So many people are listening now that haven't listened before. So many people are sharing and are interested in the content. So please continue doing what you're doing. But I want to thank you for being loyal listeners. We're going to take this podcast to a whole other level. It's going to happen naturally. We're just going to keep doing what we're doing, and people are going to spread the word, and people are going to want to tune in and share it with their friends so that they can tune in also. Having said that, this coming Friday, a reminder, a good friend of mine reached out to me. He was listening to the podcast. He listens every morning. And he has been specifically listening about this conversation around health. And what do we do when, God forbid, we get that diagnosis that nobody ever wants to get in their entire life? What do you do? How do you foster that relationship with your creator? How do you overcome? And so he was there. He was there not long ago. He was given a serious diagnosis and he had to go to bat and he had to develop his relationship and he saw open miracles. And so we're going to share that this coming Friday, Godwin. So let's get into it, my friends. What I'm about to share with you has been discussed by every single individual who's ever even thought about Torah, who's ever even thought about godliness. And volumes have been written, and the conversation continues. We can talk about it forever, lifetimes, but we won't, because we've only got a few minutes. Everything is foreseen, yet the freedom of choice is given. What's the point? What's the question? Everything is foreseen by who? I don't know everything. You don't know everything. The only one who knows everything is our creator. And so everything is foreseen by him. What does that mean? It means he knows everything. He knows your next move. He knows your next thought. He knows everything about you and he knows exactly what you're going to choose given any situation, given any circumstance that he puts you in, he knows with absolute certainty which way you are going to choose. Yet, he still gives you freedom of choice. That doesn't jive. It doesn't connect. There's a clear disconnect between those two ideas. Either he knows, and therefore there's no point in free choice, because what's the point? He already knows the outcome. What are we just doing this to go through the motions? To kill time, God forbid. That's not how it works. But it says here clearly that he's still giving you free choice, even though he knows what you're going to choose. And the message that's being sent here is the following. Again, 30,000 feet. I'm not going down deep. We don't have the time for it. Think of it in the following way: a teacher who's teaching fifth grade, and she has a student in that class, and that student follows her from fifth grade to sixth grade, to seventh grade, to eighth grade, and to ninth grade. Every year that she has that child, she knows with absolute certainty that given any single situation with that child, when I give him a choice between A and B, he's going to choose B every single time. Why? Because the teacher is intimately involved in that child's growth and has seen him make choice after choice after choice. She knows with absolute clarity and certainty what decisions that child is going to make. Why? She's not God. And that doesn't mean that just because he's been making those choices for three, four, five years, that he's going to make them for the next three, four, five years. So the same applies over here. That God says, even though I know you better than you know yourself, even though I know what you're going to choose today, tomorrow, you may surprise me. Tomorrow, you may grow because why? You may read from the book. You may listen to the podcast. You may get yourself a rabbi and sit and learn Gemara. And that fundamentally changes a human being. Fundamentally, the insides of you change entirely. Your thought processes change entirely. And so Lishem says, today I know what you're going to choose, but I'm still going to give you free choice. Why? Because tomorrow is another day, and you may be an entirely different person because you've grown. Does that make sense? Because that's exactly what it says over here. A lot of people rack their brains. Such a philosophical question. How can there be free choice in the world if God already knows what the outcome is going to be? First of all, it's irrelevant. What the outcome is going to be to us is irrelevant because we don't run the world. We're not going to be here. We have an expiry date. He's going to be here long after we're gone. So for him, it's important to know the past, the present, and the future. For us, it's irrelevant. That's number one. But number two is that can actively and dynamically change. And in fact, it does if we're doing the right things and we're growing. The world is judged with goodness. And everything depends on the abundance of good deeds. The world is judged with goodness. We've said this before. God created the world originally with judgment. With strict judgment. But he realized early on that if he continued to judge the world with strict judgment, the world would not survive. It would go back to what's called Tohu Vavo, which is the way that the world was before it was created. In other words, he would have to undo all of creation if he stuck to the letter of the law. Take that into serious consideration if you're in a position of judging somebody else. That God Himself says that based on the human function, if he ran this world based on strict judgment, shut it all down. There's no point. And therefore, he introduced this concept of divine mercy. While there is still justice in judgment, he has to introduce an element of mercy, because otherwise we simply are too flawed to continue. And everything depends on the abundance of good deeds. Let me put this one to you this way. Generally speaking, God says, How do I judge this individual? I have to judge them based on their good deeds, based on their merits. If they have enough good deeds, then the reward is commensurate with their good deeds. And if God forbid it isn't, then the reward isn't there. And in fact, if you're busy doing the sins all day long, then the same is true of the sins. The amount of punishment, consequence associated with the sin is directly related to how much sinning you do. Very simple. But if we think about it the way that the Rumbam says, it will give us an even clearer picture. The Rumbam says that anybody who sits and counts his mitzvahs versus his sins, his good deeds versus his sins, that individual is considered righteous. Where does he say this? He talks about that in reference to Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, the day of judgment, where we have to be very careful with our deeds. We have to be careful to make sure that we have to consider ourselves like a Benoni, which is an intermediate person, somebody who's right in the middle. I've got an equal amount of good deeds and an equal amount of sins of Averas. And I have to constantly be counting and measuring and being aware of my actions that I can easily tip the scales with one action. And he says that the action himself is not nearly as important as just being the person who sits and contemplates to say, Am I doing good? Is my next deed gonna tip me to the right side? If you're contemplating that, Rambam Maimonides says, you are already considered a righteous individual. And therefore, everything that he does is based on our mindset, not just our deeds. If we want to do the mitzvah, but we're stopped from doing it, you still have full reward for it. But why? I wanted to do the mitzvah, I wanted to do the good deed, but something got in my way, something stopped me, I'm no longer able to do it, it's out of my control, and somehow I'm still given the reward for it. And the answer is yes. Why? Because just like the Ram Bam says, if you're busy contemplating it, even if you didn't do it, but you're contemplating what's my next move? Is it going to be the one that tips me to the side of good or the one that tips me to the side of bad? That is enough for you to be considered righteous, and therefore God will deal with you as a righteous individual. That wraps it up for Pirke. Well, let's get back into our book. According to Amuna, everything that happens in our lives is a product of divine precision and providence, and it's got nothing to do with nature, with luck, or with fate. All of those ideas are not Jewish concepts. We don't believe in nature. We don't believe in luck. We don't believe in fate. Those aren't our ideas. Those are ideas of people who don't understand that there is a God who determines outcomes. So a person who devotes an hour a day to self-evaluation, penitence, and personal prayer in particular has nothing to worry about. So an hour a day, that's the hit poted. That's the personal conversation that you have with your creator. Evaluate yourself. Take some time to do some introspection. How has my day been? How has my week been? How has my month and my year been? How's my life going? Am I on the right path? Am I on the right track? Am I making good choices? Am I learning? Am I growing? Or God forbid, am I doing the other? If you're doing that, that's step number one. Penitence. I made mistakes. Acknowledge that I made a mistake. Today, in this generation, everybody is so bent on being perfect. Everybody needs to be the picture of perfection. They're so busy comparing themselves to Hollywood celebrities and people that post online on social media all the wonderful pictures, all the great things, all their vacations, all the fancy restaurants that they dine in, they put pictures of their meals, the friends that they rub elbows with, the elites, the hobnobbing, the galas and the events and the fancy ball gowns. It's all over the internet for everybody to see. So that's the picture of perfection. I don't want to be any less than them, so therefore I need to strive for perfection. And when you don't get the perfection, then you're in trouble, right? Then everything is out the window. It's not worth it anymore. Recognize that it's not normal to be perfect. There is no such thing as perfection. You're going to make mistakes. The key is that when you make a mistake, acknowledge it. Recognize I've made a mistake. I'm human. I'm going to err. But the way to get past that, the way to make it right, is to say sorry, is to acknowledge that I've done something wrong, to say sorry, and to take an action to fix it. That's it. Done. It's not so difficult. You're driving in the parking lot, you bump your car into another person's car, you leave them a dent. Is it enough for you to take a note, write it down, put it in the windshield wiper saying, I hate your car, feel really sorry, hope you have a good rest of your day. That's not enough. Because it's nice that you said sorry, but it's not enough. You have to fix what you've done. Once you've felt bad enough to say sorry and to get out of your car and to address the individual and to write down your information so that they can contact you, that's acknowledging I've done something wrong. That's feeling bad. Then you put the note in the windshield with your contact information so that you can get your insurance information and he can fix his car. Done. Done. It's over. You've repented, you've done your penitence, you are back to a clean slate as far as that is concerned. Accidents happen, mistakes happen. It's how we address them, how we deal with them that differentiates us from the back. And personal prayer, that's the key. That's the glue. That's the connection between us and our Creator. Without it, he doesn't exist. You're not talking to him. You talk to people who you interact with. You talk to people who are real. If you're not talking to him, he's not real in your life. So you need to speak to him. He's your father. And he's watching and he's listening. And he wants to be a part. He wants to be active in your life. So use your words and have that connection. That individual, those three things, personal evaluation, penitence, and personal prayer, that individual has nothing to worry about. If a person is making his best effort at self-improvement, then why should the creator punish him? He's not masochistic. He wants you to succeed. He knows you're going to make mistakes. So if he sees you trying, he sees you making an effort, just like a parent sees a child trying to stand up and walk for the first time. What's he going to do? Push him down? That's not normal. Kids try to walk. And if anything, I'm going to try and support him. I'm going to hold his hand, I'm going to lift him up. That I would somehow sabotage him? It's masochistic. That's not God. It's not us, and it's certainly not him. Such a person doesn't need wake up calls. You hear this? Because he's daily arousing himself to penitence and to self-improvement. The result of an hour a day in personal prayer is increased happiness and decreased stress and worry. I want to go back for a second. Such a person doesn't need wake-up calls. That illness that we're talking about, the diagnosis that you get, God forbid, from a doctor, do you know what that is? That's a wake up call. And if you don't want that wake up call and the other millions of types of wake-up calls that you can get on a daily basis from your creator to say, hey, get back in line. Hey, stop doing the bad, start doing the good. If you don't want those wake-up calls, then all you need to do is those three things. Take an hour a day and stop and reflect. Who am I? What am I doing? What path am I on? Am I doing good? Am I headed for success? If I didn't, if I made mistakes, I feel bad about him. I don't want to do them. I don't want to repeat them. I'm going to ask for forgiveness. I'm going to make them right. And I'm going to speak to my creator because without him, I can't do it. Without him, my friends, we can't do anything. Have an amazing day. And tomorrow we continue. Thank you for spending time with us on the Trust Factor Podcast. If you've heard something today that moved you, save this episode and share it with someone who might need to hear it. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss upcoming conversations that challenge, empower, and uplift. And if you're on social media, connect with us. Leave your thoughts. Drop a quote that resonated with you. Hashtag the TrustFactor Podcast. Until next time, keep growing in your trust and keep living with purpose. I'm Jesse Revivo, and this has been the Trust Factor Podcast. Thanks for listening.