Fixing Your Wind - 013 Bragging Part 1: Need for Approval

Fire-of-Wind: Bragging About Oneself

With the help of Hashem we shall continue to discuss how we rectify the element of wind, which is the source of idle speech. [We have already discussed earth-of-wind (lying) water-of-wind (flattery) and wind-of-wind (gossip), and each of their subdivisions]. Now we will discuss fire-of-wind, which is the root of bragging.

Rav Chaim Vital writes in Shaarei Kedushah that one of the evil traits which stems from wind is mesaper b’shevach atzmo, one who brags about his praises. Bragging about oneself is actually the “fire” aspect that is within wind.

Fire is the root of the nature to feel elevated, and it is also the source of ga’avah (conceit) and ka’as (anger). In general, fire is the root gaavah\conceit[whether for good or evil]. But the trait of mesaper b’shevach atzmo\bragging is a branch of the element of wind. Bragging involves some factor of gaavah, because the person is haughty about himself, which is an aspect of “fire”, and it is involves speaking about oneself, and speech is rooted in wind; thus, bragging about oneself stems from fire-of-wind.

Here we will not discuss gaavah (conceit), which is a separate discussion.[1] Here we are discussing bragging, which is often involved with gaavah, but not always; sometimes bragging is done even without gaavah.

The Four Kinds of Bragging\Speaking About Oneself

Fire-of-wind, just like all of the other subdivisions of the elements, has four applications: earth, water, wind, and fire. Let’s first list them briefly and then explore each of them in-depth.

Earth-of-fire-of-wind is for one to speak about his qualities because he is trying actualize his views.

Water-of-fire-of-wind is when one simply enjoys speaking about his qualities. He is not doing this merely so that others will know about his qualities and come to revere him; (that would be gaavah\ conceit or kavod\honor). Rather, the way to understand his behavior is that just like a person enjoys thinking about his qualities, so would a person enjoy speaking about his qualities to others.

Wind-of-fire-of-wind is when a person speaks about his himself or his qualities with another as he’s immersed in what he’s doing or thinking. Someone who is very self-absorbed might speak about his qualities with another; during a conversation, he might take up the entire conversation talking about his qualities and talents. (Others talk all the time with others about their difficulties and of their shortcomings, but that is a separate topic, unrelated to this one). 

To illustrate, a child will tell his friends about what goes on his family, because the child is very immersed in his home and family life, so that is what he speaks about with his friends all the time.

Fire-of-fire-of-wind is when one speaks about his qualities which he doesn’t possess, because he feels that he is empty from those virtues, so he gets vitality when he speaks about qualities that he doesn’t possess. His hope is that when he speaks about those qualities he doesn’t yet have, that he will increase his aspirations for them and then work towards attaining them.

Many people have this problem: they speak about qualities which they don’t have, for the purpose of trying to inspire themselves so that they will be able to have the motivation to attain the qualities they wish they possessed.

Earth-of-Fire-of-Wind: The Need For Validation

Let’s begin by analyzing earth-of-fire-of-wind: when a person speaks about his qualities so that he can actualize them.

Why is he telling another person about his qualities? It is because he feels that he needs another person’s recognition and approval, in order to solidify his own sense of self-worth.

This is not to be confused with the desire for kavod (honor), which is also a need for value and recognition[2]. Here we are discussing one who is not fully aware of his qualities, so he speaks about his qualities with another in the hope that he will become evaluated by another, and then he feels that he can bring out his qualities better.

The person who brags about himself to others or relates to them what’s going on in his mind, is doing so because he sees that another approves of a quality or perspective that he possesses, and now he feels more confident in himself, feeling that he can now push himself further to use those qualities or to actualize his views.

Most people are not confident in themselves from within themselves, so they get their confidence when they see that others are recognizing their virtues. Some people have natural inborn confidence, but they are usually arrogant, which is gaavah; such people believe that whatever they do and think is right, so they are naturally confident in themselves and that’s why they speak about their qualities with others. But the average person does not have so much gaavah like this, and that is why most people do not trust their decisions so strongly, even if he is a person is who knows how to think very rationally.

Ideally, when a person is seeking advice from many people on one particular topic, it is because he wants to gather clarity about the information by hearing about it a lot. This does not show any sign of weakness. To the contrary: he is missing information on something, so he is being sensible, trying to gather information and expand his options; he plans on deciding which of the advice to follow, based on what makes the most sense to him.

But most people, when they seek advice, are in need of others’ advice simply because they are not confident in themselves, and not because they are trying to gain clarity on a topic. A person usually gains confidence in himself when he sees that another agrees with him.

If another person tells him he is making a mistake, or that’s a bit mistaken in his thinking, he will feel that he has not been understood well, and he will not accept the advice, seeking another’s opinion, until someone finally agrees with him.

Why? It is really because the person did not really seek ‘advice’. He wasn’t interested in hearing from another that his thinking is wrong. Although it appears like he is seeking advice, his intention is not really to accept advice. He wanted solely to be validated. So if someone doesn’t give him that validation, he will seek another person who will validate him.

Skepticism About Personal Decisions: A Lack of Confidence

Most people are not believing in themselves to make decisions. Even when a person goes to a wise “Daas Torah” person for advice, his motivation in going is not always coming from emunas chachamim (belief in our wise scholars). It is usually coming from a lack of confidence in one’s own thinking.

Someone once told Rav Shach zt”l, “This generation must be better than previous generations, because in today’s generation, everyone asks the Gedolim for advice on every possible topic.” Rav Shach responded, “This is a weakness of the generation, because it shows that no one is confident enough to believe in their own decisions.”

So most people are not confident enough in themselves to make major decisions. (There are also people who don’t like to decide anything simply because they do not understand what they are deciding about, so they would rather remain neutral. Others don’t like to decide because they don’t trust their human logic, and they would rather ask someone who is Daas Torah who has a holier intellect than they. This is a separate topic.)

Most people do not like to decide even though they know how to think very rationally, because they don’t have the inner strength to trust their decisions. By speaking about it with another and being validated, they gain confidence in their decisions.

Some people will even be satisfied as long as the listener says “Yeah” to what he’s saying, and others will even be satisfied as long as the listener is silent, feeling that the “silence is like agreement.” Others will even gain this confidence as long as they knew that they conversed about their issues with another.

For example, you can have a person who writes a sefer and he needs to find the sources in the Torah for his ideas, and he sees his ideas written in another sefer, so that’s enough proof to him that it’s true. He feels that as long as his idea can come to any level of fruition and actualization, he can then feel secure about what he’s doing.

Most of the time, a large factor of stability\security that a person feels is when the person speaks about what he does with another; he then feels stable\secure about what he does, simply because he has spoken about it with another.

The Power of Speech and How It Affects Reality

This is accomplished through the soul’s power of dibbur (speech). We see that the power of speech can have an effect on reality. An example of this is the Torah’s law of a neder (a vow). Speech can give permanence to something. Without speaking about one’s issues and decisions, a person won’t feel strong about his views; when he speaks about his views with others, he suddenly feels stronger about those views.

For example, a husband comes home at the end of the day and his wife tells him, “I bought this and this in the store. I made such-and such of a decision. Was I right, or should I have done something else?” She wasn’t asking for his approval; she feels more secure in her decision just by talking about it with him.

If he tells her, “No, you were not right about your decision”, and he explains to her why she was wrong, a dispute erupts. So why did she ask him for his approval if she had her mind made up anyway? It is because she probably needed to speak about her decision just so that she could reassure herself about what she did. She was speaking about it not because she wanted to know if she was right or wrong about it, but because speaking about it makes her feel more secure about her decision.

So when a person does not trust his thinking and he doubts himself, he might speak about his decisions or issues with another person simply so that he can gain confidence about his views. 

Two Kinds of People: Seeking Advice Vs. Seeking Validation

As mentioned earlier, sometimes a person simply does not know how to decide, because he is missing information about what he has to decide about. In such a case, the issue is not about developing more belief in himself, because this will not solve his issue. What he has to do is ask a person whose decisions he will trust, and listen to the advice.

But if one is conversing with another whom he knows cannot really advise him, it must be that he is talking to him simply so that he can validate his view, by speaking about it. He is not speaking to the other to ask him for advice, and he is not planning on listening to the advice or opinion he hears. He simply wanted to speak about his views with the other so that he can infuse himself with validation.

If someone does not know how to decide on something and he knows that he seeks advice from another, he should go ask someone whose opinions he trusts and whom he will listen to. And he must listen to the advice he hears.

However, another kind of person, whom we are discussing, really knows how to decide, he just doesn’t trust his decisions. What he has to do, to fix this, is a different remedy than the above one.

The superficial method which people try for this is to brag about their qualities with another, so that their confidence will go up. We want to get to the inner solution, however, using the elements of the soul.

It will not either help the person if he learns how to speak honestly about himself with others and tells others about his weaknesses – it’s even worse, because it can breed low self-esteem. He already doesn’t believe in himself, and talking about his weaknesses with others will only intensify his lack of confidence in himself.

The Root of the Solution

Thus, the remedy lies in knowing the reason that motivates him to speak about himself with others. As we explained, a lack of belief in oneself is the reason why a person doesn’t trust his own decisions.

How are we able to decide on anything? We all have doubts, several options we face, and we need to make decisions sometimes, hoping that we are choosing correctly. Sometimes we make the right choices, and sometimes we are wrong. Nobody is always right, and nobody is always wrong.

Some people feel that they can’t decide, so they will decide whatever they see most people are doing. Others do not know how to decide because they were stifled as children; if he would go to the store when he was a child to buy something for the house, his parents never liked what he bought in the store, and perhaps he got yelled at: “You don’t know how to buy anything for the house!!” He grew up thinking that he has no idea how to decide.

Others knew how to decide what to buy in the store, but with very minimal thinking, such as by thinking which item is cheaper and what the house is missing right now. But this doesn’t show that he still trusts his own decisions. Either it is because he is aware of his weaknesses and that is why he doesn’t trust himself, or, it because he only knows how to decide based on what he knew his surroundings decide.

The Power To Make Decisions

The truth is: how, indeed, are we able to really make a decision about anything?

Some people feel that they always make correct decisions, being that they see that most of their decisions are correct. Therefore, they have confidence that they are right. But this is not either a truthful kind of decision.

The truth is that we really cannot “decide” on our own.  Our power of daas is the part of our mind that helps us decide.[3] Some decisions are clear-cut, like if you would have a pile of gold in front of you and a pile of straw in front of you, and you ‘decide’ to take the gold. But a decision like this is not much of a decision; it doesn’t involve any thinking.  Most of the decisions we face involve shikul hadaas - weighing out your options. How can we decide in such cases?

If one analyzes the matter by breaking up all the details, he is closer to seeing the answer. But there is no end to how much we can keep breaking down and refining a matter. So how do we come to a decision?

We really are not able to decide on our own! A human being does not know how to decide. The only way you can decide is when you seek truth - and then you can be assisted by Heaven to get to the truth.

A person tries to analyze and break down the matter, but he can still be in doubt about what to do, so we really do not have the power to decide. Most people are deciding without thinking enough into it, so they are not really deciding. Sometimes they are right and sometimes are wrong. These are not real decisions; they do not come from the power of daas (combining information and then deciding), but from binah (contemplation, via taking apart information).

This is indeed why most decisions being made are inaccurate – it is because the matter is still unclear even after one has decided, being that he was missing information; so the decision can be off-mark. Mistaken decisions, which result from a lack of information, can get a person into trouble.

After a person has thought very well into a situation and he has taken apart the information, he is closer to making an accurate decision; this solves most questions. There is a statement, “A question of the wise is half the answer.” But if a person is still in doubt even after he has thought very well into the information, how, indeed, can he decide?

True Decisions Come From Seeking Truth

The only way to come to a proper decision is when one has access to “the G-dly spark” in the soul, which enables a person to decide. When one doesn’t seek truth, he won’t have access to the G-dly spark within, and he cannot really decide on anything even if he tries to. Even if he does ‘decide’, his decisions are all coincidental.

True decisions are not possible through one’s human power. They can only come from the G-dly spark in the soul. It is reached only when a person seeks truth.

Discovering The Root of Lack of Confidence

Having understood this, one has to discover why he is not confident in himself.

1) Is it because he developed a lack of confidence in himself? If that is the case, he will have to learn how to remove the negative self-image he has developed from his childhood and throughout his life; this merits a discussion for itself.

2) But if a person discovers that the reason why he doesn’t have confidence in his thinking is because he knows he has failed in the past with his decisions, he should realize that all of those failures did not come from a lack of knowing how to decide, but from a lack of information.

Solving Decision-Related Issues

If that is the case, the person has to learn how to think into a situation and take apart the information[4]. When he goes to ask a wise person for advice, his main focus should be on simply knowing how to give over the information correctly, and to lay forth all of the factors in his issue. As for the decision itself, that should only come at a later stage.

This is because the root of why he has failed in the past in his decisions is because he didn’t know how to take apart the issue and identify the various factors that were involved in the issue. The problem he had is what tells us the root of the solution: he must learn how to identify his issues, so that he can lay forth the information properly to the one whom he’s asking advice from.

Seeking Truth: Purifying Your Motivations

If he sees that in spite of this, his decisions are still off the mark, he must analyze what his motivations were.

If he had pure motivations and he was acting for the sake of Heaven, a person receives the siyata d’shamaya (Heavenly assistance) to make the right decisions, as we said before.

But if a person sees that in spite of having pure intentions he still did not merit to make the right decision, it must be that Hashem has willed it for whatever reason, that he should go through a failure. If a person checks himself and sees that he didn’t have pure intentions when he made his decision, then his avodah is to begin having purer motivations: to act for the sake of Heaven, out of a sincere desire to seek the truth.

The problem with using this method, however, is that some people are the type to blame Hashem whenever they have failures, attributing their failures to Hashem and not to themselves, but when they have successes, they attribute the success to themselves, and not to Hashem. A person has to attribute both his successes and failures to Hashem’s will - not one or the other.

Thus, if one had intentions for the sake of Heaven when he decided, and he still failed in his decisions, it must be that it was simply the will of Hashem that he fail, and it had nothing to do with his lack of thinking. If he knows that he didn’t have intentions for the sake of Heaven when he decided, then it is upon him to learn how he can seek truth and purer motivations, and then he will see that he has siyata d’shmaya in his decisions.

One Who Doesn’t Believe In His Qualities

Until now we explained how to fix the problem of not believing in oneself, in relation to the topic of speaking of oneself. Now we will explain another kind of problem: one who doesn’t believe in his qualities.

The previous kind of person we discussed in one who doubts himself entirely when it comes to his decisions. But the kind of person we will now discuss is one who believes he can decide, just, he doesn’t believe in his qualities.

Reb Yeruchem Levovitz zt”l said, “Woe is to the person who isn’t aware of his faults. But even worse is a person who doesn’t know his strengths.” Why, indeed would a person not believe in his strengths and qualities?

By some people, it is because they are scared of developing gaavah (conceit), so they deny their qualities as to avoid gaavah. This is a separate subject, and the key to this lies in knowing the definitions of conceit vs. humility. But we will not discuss this here.

Another reason why a person wouldn’t recognize his strengths is because he simply has a negative outlook towards himself. He might be negative towards others as well and not believe in others’ qualities, focusing only on their shortcomings. (Another person has the opposite problem: he doesn’t know his own qualities, and he only sees the qualities of others.) He is drawn towards focusing on negativity.

This might have been developed through surroundings in his childhood which chipped away at his confidence and caused him to slowly grow negative about everything; if this is the case, it merits its own discussion, in which a person must learn how to separate himself from the problems that have developed. But it can simply be coming from a nature of his soul to be negative about things.

If that is the case, such a problem is usually due to a previous gilgul (lifetime) - in his previous lifetime, he probably went through much failure, so it’s deeply engraved into his soul to focus on his shortcomings. His initial thinking is therefore drawn towards being negative about himself, even if he was born into a positive environment during his current life.

Talking about his qualities will be difficult for him because he does not accept that he has qualities. It would seem that we can fix this through using earth-of-fire-of-wind in the soul: to speak about his qualities, so that he can get himself to believe in his qualities. The problem is, though, is that he doesn’t believe in the first place that he has qualities.

The Solution: Taking Apart Details

There are two kinds of people: one who does not accept the fact that he has qualities, and another kind of person cannot accept that he has shortcomings. The first kind of person is who we are currently discussing. The second kind of person has a problem of gaavah\conceit. These two problems, while resulting in opposite negative traits, are still related to each other, though.

We say in “Borei Nefashos” that “Hashem created all many creations and their deficiencies”. The way Hashem designed this world is that nothing is perfect in Creation; there are deficiencies in everything. Nothing in the world is black-on-white; nothing is entirely good or entirely bad. Everything is a mix. There is good and evil mixed into everything.

The idea we can take out of this is that a person must take apart things he comes across, seeing both the good and bad in everything. The more a person gets used to seeing how nothing is black-or-white, he will gain a better self-image of himself as well, because he will see that he is not entirely bad.

Most people do not actually see what they come across at face-value. People are usually seeing what they want to see, and not what is actually here. This can be generally labeled as a problem resulting from our imagination, but to be more specific, it comes from a lack of identification. When a person drawn towards a negative self-image on himself (and on others), he is drawn towards focusing on deficiencies and negativity.

But the more a person learns how to take apart all the details in something he comes across – and he should do this in all areas of life – even if he is drawn towards negativity, he will begin to see that nothing is black-or-white. Everything is complex, so nothing is entirely “bad” and nothing is entirely “good”. This will help him gain a more accurate self-image of himself.

(This is also a method that can solve gaavah\conceit, because the conceited person can see that he is not entirely perfect, for everything contains good and bad.)

Getting used to taking apart information will enable a person to grow independent of others’ approval. Not only will he be able to decide better without needing others to approve of his views, but he will also gain a better self-image of himself, because he learns how to label things better.

A Fundamental Mentality

Although this is a solution that solves an impaired earth-of-fire-of-wind in the soul as we are discussing here in this chapter, it is actually a fundamental method in one’s entire avodah between man and himself.

Most people today do not know what’s going on inside themselves, and all they know of about themselves are various imprints left by their memory from throughout their life. Based upon those tidbits of information, most people try to understand themselves from there, and they also include in this how others think of them. That is how most people are developing their self-image – and it is of course a poor and superficial knowledge of oneself.

But if a person absorbs the perspective here, he knows how to be aware of simple truths – both towards life and both towards his own self. 

In Conclusion

This change of perspective (taking apart details) enables a person to come out of imagination\falsity in general, and to instead live a life from a truthful and honest perspective.

In turn, he will also not need others’ approval when he talks to others. He will even be able to praise others’ qualities and views instead of his own - which rectifies the trait of mesaper b’shevach atzmo on the most complete level.