They phoned to tell us of the engagement of their eleventh,
and last, child. My daughter of twenty, who had not yet met
her bashert, said wistfully, "How is it that their
shidduchim go so easily?" I laughed and answered that
we were invited to the engagements; we were not told of the
trials and tribulations which preceded the happy event. We
only heard of the successes, not of the ones which did not
get off the ground.
People accuse the pharmaceutical industries of overpricing
their products and of taking advantage of the public. They do
not take into account the years of painstaking experiments
and research, which are followed by scrupulous clinical
trials on humans. A few failures, like, for example,
Thalidomide, which caused babies to be born with malformed
limbs or even without limbs altogether, obviously became
public knowledge throughout the world. But on the whole,
either the drug never makes it to the shelves, or it is
quietly withdrawn, never to appear on the market.
Nowadays, marriage guidance counselors and parenting classes
abound. Young mothers come to me with a particular problem,
frequently with several problems, and I try to help them to
the best of my ability. I do not usually tell them of the
many mistakes I made in my youth (and am still making), nor
do I mention the numerous failures in my life. Yet, on the
rare occasion when such an admission escapes my lips, the
mother is charmed and more open to suggestion. Instead of
putting me on an unjustified pedestal, she realizes that I,
too, am human, and understand her problems.
How many of us are caught by persuasive telemarketing, or
enticing advertisements, and swayed by their allure. FREE,
screams the advert; you only have to pay for postage and
packing. So we pay a considerable sum of money, far more than
the usual price of postage, for an unwanted item, which
breaks down or does not work in the first place. There are
laws to protect the consumer in many countries, but we do not
like to admit that we have been stupid and gullible.
A newly married young woman went to her parents for Shabbos,
and shamefacedly confessed to her parents, and to her young
husband, how she had been caught. "You forgot," said her
father, wagging his finger at her playfully, "that nothing
comes for nothing except smacks." They all laughed together
and the hurt was eased, because she had admitted her
failure.
A classmate, a colleague, a friend or just an acquaintance,
seems to succeed in whatever s/he does. Life runs so smoothly
for them, and everything they attempt goes right. Things are
not always what they seem. A parent whose son was not doing
at all well, gazed enviously at his friend's beaming face at
a parent teacher meeting. He did not see him fifteen minutes
later, after he heard about the exploits of his younger son.
All humans have problems at some time or other, but as
mentioned, most of us do not air these problems to all and
sundry. We might boast about our gifted daughter, yet hardly
speak about the difficult teenager who has just been asked to
leave his third Yeshiva.
A Talmid Chochom in his fifties gave a hesped
recently, about his maggid shiur in Yeshiva over
thirty years ago. He remembered how the maggid shiur
had tried to get a point across to the boys, and felt that
they had not grasped the essence of the message. He tried
again, and was still not successful. Thereupon, he left the
room and called on his colleague to try to explain the
subject to the students, and afterwards simply continued
on.
This effortless humility made a great impression on the boys,
and as the man said, years later, when he, himself, was in a
similar position, giving shiurim, he admired this
great man even more, when he thought of this incident.
It is a pity that we tend to conceal our failures because of
mistaken feelings of shame. We enjoy the applause and
admiration for our achievements and accomplishments. The
discomfiture we feel at our failings prevents us from getting
advice and support from people who have been in the same
position. When one of the so called successful people admits
to having suffered the same ignominious failure, we feel less
inferior and more a regular member of the human race.
However, someone teaching a weight watcher's class cannot be
overweight. S/he can admit to having undergone the same
vicissitudes as the would-be dieters, but s/he has to show
the final achievement. On the other hand, someone writing an
advice column on the same subject, can be as large as a
house, but would not want readers to be aware of this
fact.
Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose book on child rearing has sold
millions of copies since a half a century ago, did not tell
his readers of the problems he had in his own family. His
advice was excellent, but he himself did not manage to live
by his maxims. If readers had known of this fact, would they
have reached for the book as a panacea, the minute a baby
cried?
When reading an advice column, or hearing a speaker whose
children are all models of perfection, take into account that
nobody is one hundred percent perfect, and that you yourself,
who have come for advice and knowledge, also have the
potential for more success than failure, once you have
acquired more experience in the field.
