Fixing Your Earth [Laziness] - 010 Self-Deception & The Solution

Water-of-Wind-of-Earth: Escaping Into A ‘Comfort’ Zone

With siyata d’shmaya, we will continue to learn about the element of earth, and the trait of laziness. Here we will learn about laziness that comes from water-of-wind-of-earth.

As mentioned in previous lessons, earth is an unmoving element, so earth is the root of the trait of laziness. Wind is the root of movement – the very opposite of non-movement\earth\laziness. Water is the root of “dragging”.

Water-of-wind-of-earth is when there is a tug-of-war between earth\laziness and wind\movement, due to the contradiction between these two natures, which can produce a nature in a person to become dragged after a sort of ‘escape zone’ - where a person runs away to, in order to avoid dealing with the contradiction between his earth\non-movement and his wind\movement.

In order to ‘run away’ from the inner contradiction in himself, a person ‘moves’ towards wherever he’s comfortable, where it’s easier for him there and he doesn’t have to deal with a challenge. The contradiction between his element s of earth and wind is already a challenge to deal with, and this contradiction may compel a person to ‘run away’ from it – using the element of water, by ‘dragging’ himself away from the contradiction. That is where he finds his ‘comfort’ zone.

Subconsciously Dragged Into One’s Comfort Zone

Sometimes, this ‘escape into the comfort zone’ is done consciously, but in most cases, it is being done subconsciously.

For example, the parents ask the child to do something. It can be hard for the child to do at first, so he does it begrudgingly, but after some time, the child becomes drawn after something else that catches his attention, and he becomes pulled and ‘dragged’ after it, forgetting about his chore. With children, this is very common. But adults as well can have this problem. A person may have something he needs to take care of, so he begins to do it, but while doing it, he becomes pulled and ‘dragged’ away into doing something that’s more comfortable him for to do.

In most cases, this is done on a subconscious level, because the person usually isn’t clear of the various thoughts and motivations that are inside them. If you would ask most people about what the general structure of their souls are like [i.e. what kind of nature they have, what they are mainly drawn towards, what their likings and dislikings are, etc.], they would not give a clear answer. That is the nature of most people: they lack a clear awareness of themselves [their natures]. People will often know what they like and what they hate, and what makes them happy or sad, etc. But they often don’t see the connection between all of these points.

Therefore, even if a person knows that he has both a lot of earth and wind in himself, he still may not be consciously aware of the contradictions in his nature, so he cannot explain his contradictory behavior, even though he may know about this contradiction in subconscious.

That is why there can be all kinds of excuses and reasons that people give, of why they became sidetracked in the midst of doing something. They don’t want to admit that it is because they usually run away into their comfort zone. Instead of admitting this, they will come up with all kinds of good reasons of why they became ‘dragged’ into something else: “I only started to do this because I was asked to do it – I didn’t really want to do it”, and etc. Usually the answers make sense, but it is still not the actual reason that they got sidetracked.

The Complexity In Our Souls

There are many different motivating factors in everything that a person does. There is never any one reason for doing something. The Creation is complex, and therefore there are endless to everything.

The Creation contains an initial, beginning point, where everything is one, and this is called maaseh beraishis. In the initial point of the Creation, there were no other details yet in the Creation, so there were no complexities yet. After Hashem created the first point, which was the maaseh beraishis, He created a myriad amount of details in the Creator, which is referred to as maaseh merkavah. Currently, we live in a world of maaseh merkavah, where there are an endless amount of details in the Creation, with all of their complexities. Only in the future will we have total clarity of our motivations.

Therefore, we have to understand that everything in our world is vastly complex. That being the case, our motivations are complex as well, and there is never any one reason that motivates us in our actions.

Not only is the world filled with endless amount of creations, items, and all kinds of things, but there are endless amount of actions, resulting actions, and motivations, in people. In every action that every person does, there are conscious and subconscious motivations. There are reasons that a person can know of, and reasons that a person can’t know of. He may be even motivated by higher reasons that go beyond his scope of awareness, which he will never discover. So whenever a person does anything, there can be many reasons why he did it. A person may do something and he has no idea why he did it.

For example, why did a person finish Shas? He may say that it’s because he wanted to be kept busy. But perhaps there were other reasons he isn’t aware of. A person thinks that he did something for a certain reason, but that is only the partial reasons. There are reasons which he simply can’t know about, of why he did it. A person needs to become aware of why he does something, but he should also know that there are other reasons which he doesn’t know about it.

To describe this in subtler terms, there are motivations of our nefesh habehaimis (animal soul), which are baser motivations, and we are also being motivated by our nefesh Elokis (G-dly soul), which are spiritual motivations to do the act. A person cannot become aware of the higher motivations behind the act, because it is simply above the grasp of his level, so he cannot know of them and hence he can’t become aware of them.

A person might be confident why he did something, but that doesn’t mean he’s right. Often he can be easily contradicted from his very actions. A person may not agree that there is a hidden reason that was motivating him, and he will be certain that it’s because of a certain reason. He thinks he knows himself 100%.

People can lie to others about the reason of why they did something, and often it’s because they’re lying to their own selves. They are simply not aware of their own reasons and motivations in doing something. It is more comfortable for a person to think that a certain reason motivated him, when it was really a different reason that motivated him. The person doesn’t want to deal with the true reason that motivated him to do or not do something, and as a result, he is fooling himself.

This is the laziness that stems from water-of-wind-of-earth. Wind and earth are a contradiction in the soul, causing a person to run away into the comfort zone. A person becomes pulled and ‘dragged’ into his comfort zone only because he lacked daas (awareness). As a result, when asked why he became sidetracked like this, and he will give all kinds of answers, but he is unaware of the true reason that motivated him. As we have been explaining here, the true reason that caused him to become sidetracked is because there was a contradiction between his earth (his laziness) and his wind (his movement), which turned on his ‘water’, his desire to flow after what’s comfortable for him to do. He got sidetracked because he allowed himself to be pulled after his comfort zone, because he didn’t want to deal with the contradictory forces in himself.

The more a person becomes aware of his soul, its forces, and the many contradictory forces in it, the less of a problem this will be. The less he is aware of the contradictions in his soul, it will be more difficult for him to stop his habits of getting sidetracked into his comfort zone, because if he isn’t aware of his subconscious motivations, he won’t admit to the contradictions in his nature, so he won’t see the need to work on himself in this area.

Running Away vs. Dealing With It

This leads us to a deep insight about the soul.

Most people, whenever they are doing something, are doing so because it is a way for them to run into their comfort zone. Most people aren’t trying to deal with their problems, and choose to run away, into the most comfortable kind of life possible, so that they don’t have to face the truths about themselves.

This is not possible, of course, when it comes to the physical side to life, where people must face difficulties and challenges in their various responsibilities, and there is no option of running away from them. The problem we are describing in this lesson is only applicable to the inner world of a person. People would rather run away from what’s taking place in their inner world, rather than deal with it.

This all takes place on a very subconscious level. Even if one does becomes aware of his inner contradiction, he will want to run away from it, rather than deal with it. But he isn’t aware that he is running away. He denies it deep down, because he doesn’t want to think he’s acting pathetic. Therefore, it’s more convenient and comfortable for him to deny the fact that that he’s running away, from facing his inner contradictions. So, not only is there an inner contradiction between his earth and wind which makes him want to run away from facing his contradictory nature, but this all motivates him to find something to do where he can ‘run away’ to, where he’s comfortable, where he won’t have to face any truths about himself.

Living with this pattern prevents a person from true growth. When there are difficulties and contradictions that are hard to face, and a person runs away and escapes from them, he will never  grow. Either a person doesn’t admit to the contradictions in his nature, or, he is aware of them, but he is simply not prepared to deal with them.

Facing Our Inner Contradictions

This leads us towards the remedy for the issue.

It is written, “He sits in the concealment Above.”[1] Hashem has created many contradictions in the Creation. Every person needs to realize that this is the way Hashem made the Creation, and that he, too, has contradictions in himself. Each thing in Creation has an opposite to it. The primary creation is the human being, and the human being can either be man and woman – who have opposing natures to each other. Every creation as well has a “man” and “woman” to it – for each force in Creation that we find, we can find something else that opposes it. Since Hashem has created the world like this, a person always needs to notice the opposite of each thing.

Applying this to our own souls, one needs to become aware that each power in his soul has a contradicting force to it.

After one realizes that, he can then take this further and realize that we all need to deal with contradictions throughout our entire life. There will always be forces that oppose us. For example, a person tries to be responsible, but he can be tempted to become an irresponsible kind of person. A person may be striving for kedushah (holiness), but he is always waging war against the forces of tumah (defilement). Chazal state that the greater a person is, the greater his evil inclination is[2], and the depth of this is that even when a person grows further, there will always be forces that will try to contradict him, more than before.

Chazal describe how the yetzer hora continuously tried stopping Avraham Avinu and Yitzchok Avinu by the Akeidah. This was the greatest of Avraham’s ten trials, and therefore it represents the most all-inclusive test of mankind possible. What was this great test? Avraham and Yitzchok kept persevering in their mesirus nefesh to fulfill Hashem’s command. The loftiest power in the soul is mesirus nefesh (which is really a power that comes from above the soul). Therefore, the yetzer hora had to keep testing their mesirus nefesh, since it represented the greatest test of mankind of possible - to persevere with mesirus nefesh, against the yetzer hora who kept arguing with them that they don’t need to have this mesirus nefesh. Avraham and Yitzchok were facing contradictory forces: their power of mesirus nefesh was being opposed by the yetzer hora not to have mesirus nefesh.

We see from this that a person will always be challenged and opposed by some other force, no matter how much he has grown.

If one isn’t aware of the concept that the Creation is full of contradictions, or if he only knows about this intellectually but he doesn’t feel that it’s true, the result will be that he won’t be aware of his motivations, because he doesn’t realize a basic truth about the entire structure of the soul. He will not live truthfully, and he will always be in denial of his other motivations in whatever he does. If one wants to live truthfully, he must realize that we are often acting from contradictions in the soul - and that either we will run away from them, or choose to face them and deal with them.

Most of the actions that a person does (except for a few rare individuals) are being done from contradictions in the soul. When a person becomes aware of this, he reacts to this either by running away from it, or by dealing with it. Those are the two possibilities. One must think and discover: “What contradiction in my nature is causing me to act this way, and how will I choose to deal with it? Am I trying to run away, or will I face it and deal with it?” In whatever a person does, a person needs to think like this and try to see what the root of his actions are, what reasons are motivating him, and that there may be other hidden motivations as well, which he isn’t able to know of.

When a person has a nature of water-of-wind-of-earth, he usually will think that he doesn’t have a contradictory nature, and that there’s nothing to deal with here. That is the depth of this nature to run away into his comfort zone. He is so used to fooling himself. He has really run away from the contradiction between his earth and wind. Either he isn’t agreeing to the contradiction, or he knows about it and he is running away from it.

The root of all contradictions in Creation is earth and wind. Water flows, while fire opposes. If one runs away from a situation, he is using water, because he is allowing himself to simply go with the flow and be pulled after his comfort zone. If one chooses to deal with a situation and face it, and he is prepared to face his challenges, he is using fire. Wind and earth oppose each other, creating a contradiction. One needs to identify the contradiction, agree to it, and then choose to deal with it instead of running away from it.

This is a fundamental kind of thinking about the entire way Hashem has made the Creation. Become aware of the many different factors that motivate you, the contradictions in your nature, because that is how Hashem has made the world – an existence full of contradictory forces. This is the secret behind all our bechirah, our free will.

The more one recognizes his soul and he sees the contradictions in his soul, he can become aware of this. He becomes aware why he should do a certain thing and why he shouldn’t, why he did something and why he didn’t do it.

In summary, in whatever a person does, he must know that he is being motivated by various contradicting motives. One part of you says to do it, another part says not to do it. One part of yourself is telling you to do something, and another part of yourself is also telling you to do it, but they can be different reasons entirely, so they are not the same motivation. One needs to become aware of these contradicting motivations in himself, and then become aware of how is reacting to it – if he is either running away from it (water\pleasure) or if he is dealing with it (fire\opposition).  

That is how one can repair the nature of water-of-wind-of-earth.