Not gone well. Disappointments. Been a slurry of rejections for not only good efforts but in addition what I think generated good achievement. Outcome as the arbiter of worthiness can pose a mental trap.
We got a mixed message from Torah this summer in the story of Pinchas. He engaged in a very questionable act of vigilante violence at the end of one of the few weekly Torah portions left as a cliff hanger. We return the following shabbos, or really the following Monday, to learn the consequences. He gets rewarded. His reward confirms the merit of his boldeness or of his violence. Good outcome=Good Decision that caused it. We get another message on Mitzvot. We do them irrespective of reward. Performance is worthy in its own right. Outcome=Luck. We can do good deeds for the right reason, but no reward comes our way.
As my recent spate of unfavorable decisions, over which I think I have little control, reaches my mail or email, or synagogue experience, my mind shifts between bad luck and performance lapses. It's hard to tell. When I am successful, which I have been more often than not, I give myself credit for my diligence, forgetting that decisions in my favor by Admissions Committees and employers and my fiance all had their element of luck, though never pure luck. And my disappointments, if chalked up to ill fortune, lose their chance at reversal. In many ways, failure now becomes the foundation for immense success. It all depends on how it gets pursued.
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