Rabbi Chanan Gordon

The Five Regrets People Have Before They Die

Several years ago, a woman named Bronnie Ware worked as a hospice nurse in Australia. Day after day, she worked with people experiencing terminal illnesses as they faced the final chapter of their lives. It is not an easy environment.

After eight years in that role, she noticed something remarkable. As patients moved beyond the stages of anger and denial and finally reached acceptance, they became strikingly honest with themselves. They looked back over their lives with a clarity that most of us rarely experience. And almost without exception, they shared more or less the same five regrets.

It did not matter whether they were from Australia, the United Kingdom, or the United States. Despite different cultures, different backgrounds, different professions, the same regrets surfaced again and again. She went on to write the bestselling book, “The Top Five Regrets of the Dying.”

I want to turn that lesson around for all of us, discussing the five regrets Bronnie Ware discovered and how Torah wisdom speaks and shapes these findings in unique ways.

Imagine you are just beginning your adult life. Perhaps, in fact, you are. Why wait until your final days to discover these truths? And if you are older, and you are still alive, you can always learn from the wisdom of those who have already reached the finish line. Let their regrets become your guide.

The first regret was along the lines of this thought: "I wish I had spent my time more wisely."

Time is life's most precious commodity. Money can be replaced and opportunities can return. Time cannot. Once it is gone, it is gone forever. So challenge yourself to adopt a new way of thinking. It is one that can stay with you for the rest of your lives.

Stephen Covey and virtually every business school in the world emphasize prioritizing our schedules. It sounds wise, but I would suggest something even more important. Don't prioritize your schedule. Schedule your priorities.

There is a profound difference. Let me explain with a story you likely know.

In 1964, a professor walked into an executive business program in Paris with a simple demonstration. He placed a large glass vase, partially filled with water, on the table. Beside it were three piles: large rocks, small pebbles, and sand. He turned to a room filled with accomplished CEOs and gave them a challenge. "Fit all of these materials into the vase without spilling the water."

One by one they tried, but every one of them failed. Finally, the professor demonstrated the solution. He placed the large rocks into the vase first. Then he poured in the pebbles, which settled into the spaces between the rocks. Finally, he added the sand, which filled every remaining gap. Nothing overflowed.

The lesson was unforgettable. If you don't put the big rocks in first, they will never fit. Life works exactly the same way.

No one reaches the end of life with every item on the to-do list completed. Nobody. There will always be another email, another project, another business opportunity, another obligation. The real question is this: what are your big rocks? Your relationship with Hashem. Your family. Your character. Your Torah learning. The people you love.

Those are the things that deserve a place in your schedule before everything else crowds them out. Otherwise, you risk ending up like Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. By the time he died, his fortune was estimated at nearly $70 billion. By every worldly measure, he was an extraordinary success. Yet according to those who were with him near the end of his life, as he reflected on his relationships, particularly with his family, his haunting conclusion was simple: "I blew it."

There comes a moment, as the neshama prepares to leave this world, when all the excuses disappear. Titles lose their importance, bank accounts become irrelevant, and the only thing that matters is what was truly valuable all along. No one should ever reach that moment and have to look back with the words, "If only."

Decide today what your big rocks are—and put them in first.

7,363 Days of Life

Recent research suggests that the average American now lives about 80 years. Let's put that into perspective.

Eighty years is approximately 28,835 days. Researchers broke those days down into how the average person spends them. Roughly 8,477 days are spent sleeping, 1,635 days eating, nearly 1,900 days commuting, 1,576 days shopping, 671 days in the restroom, and hundreds more caring for ourselves and handling life's routine necessities.

When all is said and done, only about 7,363 days remain for the things that truly define our lives.

Think about that. Just over seven thousand days.

But first, remember Bronnie Ware and the first regret: "I wish I had spent my time more wisely."

Now those numbers take on an entirely new meaning. If you only have about 7,363 meaningful days, you had better decide what deserves them. What are your big rocks?

The longest-running study on human happiness ever conducted—the famous Harvard Study of Adult Development, which has followed participants for more than eighty years—arrived at a remarkably simple conclusion.

The greatest predictor of happiness is not wealth, fame, or achievement. It is the quality of your relationships. Not things, but people. That means you need to decide, today, who your big rocks are.

That will include your spouse, your children, your family, and the people entrusted to your care. Those relationships must never become what's left over after work, success, and ambition have taken everything else. Sadly, many people discover that lesson only after it's too late. They spend years fighting the wrong battles, climbing the wrong ladder, or winning victories that ultimately don't matter.

In my work, I have known some extraordinarily successful people in the world. They have extraordinary wealth, influence, and public recognition. And I say this with genuine sadness, not judgment. Many of them are profoundly unhappy. Their bank accounts are full, but their relationships are broken. They have achieved remarkable success in the eyes of the world, yet privately they are lonely, disconnected, and deeply unfulfilled.

Success can buy almost anything, but it cannot buy a meaningful marriage, a close relationship with your children, loyal friends, or genuine inner peace. Those are your big rocks.

Don't wait until the end of life to discover what mattered most.

The Time is Right Now

Let me make this even more real.

One of our clients sold her skincare company for one billion dollars. By every conventional measure, she has won. Yet today, she is navigating a marriage that is falling apart.

From the outside, many of these individuals appear to have everything: wealth, influence, fame, and opportunities beyond imagination. Yet many of them would gladly trade an afternoon on a private yacht for a Sunday morning sitting in a beis midrash, surrounded by people searching for purpose, meaning, Torah, and genuine relationships.

Money can purchase comfort, but it cannot purchase purpose, a healthy marriage, a close family or inner peace. That is why we ought to identify our big rocks now, before life has a chance to rearrange your priorities for you.

The second lesson is one which applies to our current generation.

“I wish I had lived in the moment.”

We are living in a digital world. It is far more difficult today to live in the present than it has ever been before. Every app on your phone is competing for one thing: your attention.

People think companies like Google, Meta, TikTok, and others are simply technology companies. They're not. They're attention companies. Their business model is to keep you engaged by delivering small bursts of dopamine over and over again. Every notification, every swipe, every recommendation is carefully engineered to pull you back. Your greatest challenge is learning how to be fully present.

The Torah teaches this idea in one of its most famous episodes. Moshe Rabbeinu stood before the burning bush, a bush that burned but was not consumed. Hashem told him, "Remove your shoes, for the place upon which you stand is holy” (Shemos 3:5). The commentaries explain that the holiness was not merely geographic. It was the moment itself. This encounter would never happen again. This exact moment was sacred.

The same is true for us. You will never again be where you are right now, at this exact stage of your lives. This moment will never return.

The Gemara tells us that every person is brought into this world with purpose (see Sanhedrin 37a). None of us are accidents. Somehow, through countless circumstances that only Hashem could orchestrate, every one of you ended up in this room today. That is not coincidence.

Life is not always easy. Every person carries struggles that nobody else can see and every person has rough edges still waiting to be refined. But every person also carries a diamond within. The question is whether you are present enough to discover it.

So many people live anywhere except the present. Some live in the past, trapped by the endless refrain of, "I should have... I could have... I would have..." Others live entirely in the future, constantly chasing the next achievement, the next promotion, the next milestone.

Very few people ever learn to live fully in the only place where life actually happens: right now.

Bury the Past

Let me share a true story.

Several years ago, I was speaking at the KMR Passover program. After my lecture, a woman rushed toward the podium. She was sobbing uncontrollably, but beneath the tears I could sense something else.

She was angry, really angry. She began shouting at me. I tried to calm her down, but she wasn’t. For several minutes I had no idea what she was talking about. Finally, I realized she was speaking about her ex-husband.

They had been divorced... twenty-one years earlier. For more than two decades she had been carrying the weight of that relationship everywhere she went. The divorce was long over, but emotionally she was still living there.

That encounter taught me a profound lesson: if you don't bury the past, the past will bury you. So many people spend their lives imprisoned by yesterday replaying conversations, reliving disappointments, and rehearsing what they wish they had said or done. But yesterday no longer exists.

We should not to become consumed by tomorrow either, because none of us knows what tomorrow will bring (see Mishlei 27:1). The only place where life can actually be lived...is right now.

The most successful people I have ever met share one remarkable characteristic. They are fully present. That sounds simple, but in today's world it is incredibly difficult.

That is why mastering your time requires two commitments. First, identify your big rocks: the priorities that deserve your life. Second, be completely present wherever Hashem has placed you.

One of the great challenges facing our generation is FOMO—fear of missing out. We’re constantly wondering what everyone else is doing, where everyone else is going, or what opportunity you might be missing. But while you're looking somewhere else, you're missing the life unfolding right in front of you. Count your blessings. You're here.

This is where your life is happening.

Can I Have It All?

One of the biggest lies our culture tells us is what advertisers want you to believe. But we must recognize that the exact opposite is true. And what is that?

Stop believing that you can have it all.

That slogan may sell products, but it is a terrible philosophy for life. The promise that you can "have it all" is one of the greatest disservices modern culture has ever produced. Every advertisement, carefully curated Instagram feed, and influencer seems to be sending the same message: you can have limitless success, limitless wealth, the perfect family, perfect health, perfect vacations, perfect relationships, and perfect happiness, and all at the same time.

It simply isn't true. Life is built on trade-offs.

The Torah has always understood this. Think of life as a three-legged stool: family, health, and career. Every one of those legs requires time, attention, sacrifice, and investment. Strengthening one often means giving up something in another, at least for a season.

Everyone carries a burden, everyone is making sacrifices, and everyone is paying a price somewhere.

And therefore, I sincerely hope every one of us is carrying some struggle. I know that sounds like a strange thing for a rabbi to say. Why would I hope that? Because struggle is not evidence that something is wrong with your life. Very often, it is evidence that you are living the life Hashem intended you to live. If your life were perfectly comfortable, perfectly predictable, and completely free of challenge, it would be like a flat line on an EKG. And a flat line isn't a sign of life.

Growth requires resistance. Emunah is forged precisely in the moments when life doesn't go according to plan. So don't measure your life against the illusion that everyone else has somehow figured it all out.

They haven't. Social media shows highlight reels, not reality. The entertainment industry sells fantasies, not truth.

The Torah, though, paints a different picture.

Dance in the Rain

The Torah presents two very different ideas of tranquility. One is shalvah, while the other is menuchah.

Shalvah is the version of happiness that our culture constantly promises us. It's the belief that once everything falls into place, then I'll finally be happy. Once I have the white picket fence, the Labrador, the successful career, the perfect spouse, the perfect children, the perfect bank account, then I'll arrive.

That's the message of popular culture. But it is an illusion. Every one of us is carrying a storm. For some, it's a relationship that isn't working. For others, uncertainty about the future. Financial pressure. Health concerns. Loneliness. Disappointment.

Every single one of us has something. The world tells us, "Just wait. Eventually the storm will pass. The sun will come out, the rainbow will appear, and then you'll finally experience happiness." The Torah says otherwise. See menuchah even when things are not sorted out. We are not here to wait for the storm to pass. We are here to learn how to dance in the rain. The happiest and most resilient people are not those who avoided hardship, but who transformed hardship into growth.

Psychologists sometimes speak about what is called the "missing tile syndrome." Imagine walking into a beautiful room with stunning marble tiles arranged in a perfect pattern. Only one tile is missing. What do you notice first? Not the hundreds of beautiful tiles. The one that's missing. That is human nature. We instinctively focus on what we lack instead of appreciating what we have.

The Torah offers a radically different perspective. Real wealth is not having everything. Real wealth is recognizing that Hashem has already given you everything you need to fulfill your unique mission in this world. The moment we spend our lives looking sideways, constantly comparing ourselves to everyone else, we undermine our own happiness. Comparison is one of the fastest ways to rob ourselves of gratitude. And that is precisely the culture in which we live.

This brings us to the third regret people so often express at the end of life.

Redefine Success to Reach Success

"I wish I had redefined what success really means."

Let us ask a question.

When you hear the word success, what's the first image that comes to mind? Money,  corner office, a luxury home, status? Be honest. That's how our culture defines success. If someone says, "He's a successful man," we instinctively assume they're talking about his career, his income, or his accomplishments; not whether he's a devoted husband, a loving father, or a person of outstanding character.

Welcome to America.

Sometimes I joke that if you squeeze the letters U.S.A. together, they turn into a dollar sign. That's the definition of success our society sells. But the Torah offers a radically different definition.

There is only one person in the entire Torah whom the Torah itself explicitly calls an ish matzliach, a successful man. Who is it? Yosef HaTzaddik.

Now here's the remarkable part. When does the Torah call Yosef successful? Is it when he is wearing the coat of many colors? When he is the favored son? When he becomes second only to Pharaoh? No. The Torah first calls him an ish matzliach while he is a slave in Egypt.  Later, while he is imprisoned—forgotten, falsely accused, and sitting in a dungeon—the Torah still calls him successful.

Think about that. By every worldly standard, Yosef was a failure. But by the Torah's standard, he was the very definition of success. Because success is not determined by what happens to you. It is determined by how you respond to what happens to you.

While sitting in prison, Yosef wasn't consumed by self-pity. He noticed that the other prisoners looked distressed and asked, "Why do you look so down today?" Even in his own suffering, he was thinking about someone else. When confronted by the wife of Potiphar, he refused temptation. He understood that every human being lives with two voices. There is the voice of the body, which says, "Do what feels good." And there is the voice of the soul, which says, "Do what is right."

Yosef chose the neshama. Our entire lives are lived between those two voices.

Suppose you want to run a marathon. The alarm rings at four o'clock in the morning. What do you feel like doing? Hitting the snooze button. What do you want? To become the person capable of finishing the race.

Successful people learn one of life's greatest lessons: they refuse to let what they feel determine what they become. Feelings are temporary. Purpose is enduring. The body asks, "What do I feel like doing today?" The soul asks, "Who do I want to become?"

The truly successful person chooses the second question. That's why, when people reach the end of life, they rarely regret not making a little more money. They regret pursuing the wrong definition of success. The Torah's definition is timeless. Success is not measured by your title or salary. Success is measured by the choices you make, the values you live by, and the person you become, even when life is at its most difficult.

When Success is Not Happiness

There is another misconception that emerged from Bronnie Ware's conversations with hospice patients.

So many of them realized, far too late, that they had confused success with happiness. Our culture treats them as though they are the same thing. They are not. The unspoken message of the Western world is simple: achieve enough, earn enough, accumulate enough, and happiness will naturally follow.

But that is not how life works. Here's the difference. And I’ll draw the distinction across multiple areas of life. Here it is.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you already have. Success is having all the money in the world. Happiness is having family and friends with whom to share it. Success is everyone knowing your name. Happiness is knowing everyone else's. Success is money in the bank. Happiness cannot be deposited.  Success is having multiple homes. Happiness is always feeling at home. Success is reaching the top. Happiness has no ceiling. Success is doing what you love. Happiness is loving what you do. Success is often envied. Happiness is always shared.

As people approached the end of their lives, they recalibrated their definition of success. They discovered that winning the rat race still leaves you a rat. They realized that life's greatest treasures were never the toys they accumulated, but the relationships they nurtured, the values they lived by, and the way they spent the precious gift of time.

That brings us to the fourth regret.

Never be ashamed of your failures.

Is there anyone in this room who has never failed? Of course not. Now, who is the greatest human being who ever lived? According to the Torah, there has never been, and never will be, a prophet equal to Moshe Rabbeinu. Yet did Moshe make mistakes? Absolutely. The Torah doesn't hide them or edit them out. It doesn't sanitize the story. Moshe struck the rock and, as a result, never entered the Land of Israel.

The Torah records that painful episode because failure is not the opposite of greatness. It is often the path to greatness. Somewhere along the way, our culture convinced us that successful people are flawless and that they never fail. Nothing could be further from the truth.

What if I told you about a little boy in Europe who, at four years old, could barely speak? By seven, he struggled to write. His teachers considered him slow, and one headmaster reportedly concluded that he would never amount to much. That child grew up to become Albert Einstein.

History is filled with people whose early failures became the foundation of extraordinary lives. The question is not whether you will fail. You will. The question is what you will do after you fail.

And often, it is the doorway to the person Hashem is helping you become.

Getting Up… Again

There was once a young man whose dream was to become a newspaper cartoonist. He went from newspaper to newspaper, carrying his portfolio, only to be rejected again and again. His financial situation became so desperate that he knocked on the door of a local church and asked the priest if there was anywhere he could sleep. The priest replied, "I don't have a room, but you're welcome to stay in the old barn behind the church." That night, as he lay awake in the barn, a tiny mouse wandered out from the corner.

He picked up a pencil and sketched it. The little mouse he drew became Mickey Mouse.

The struggling artist was Walt Disney.

Or consider another story.

A young girl growing up in the American South endured poverty, abuse, and unimaginable hardship. Yet she dreamed of becoming a television broadcaster. As a teenager, she auditioned for television and was told she simply didn't have what it took. According to one account, she was told she was unfit for television. Today, the world knows her as Oprah Winfrey.

History is filled with stories like these. The difference between extraordinary people and everyone else is not that they never failed. It's that they refused to let failure have the final word.

The Torah teaches this idea beautifully. The verse in Mishlei tells us, "A tzaddik falls seven times and rises again” (Mishlei 24:16). Notice what the Pasuk does not say. It doesn't say that the tzaddik never falls. It says they always get back up. Failure is not the opposite of righteousness; giving up is.

One of my favorite observations comes from Ernest Hemingway, who wrote, "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places." I think there is profound truth in those words.

My brother is a nuclear radiologist, and one day I asked him a question. "When a bone breaks and heals properly, how likely is it to break again in that exact same place?" He smiled and explained that during the healing process, the body lays down new bone and strengthens the fracture site. In many cases, once fully healed, that spot can become stronger than it was before the injury.

What an extraordinary metaphor for life.

The places where you've been broken don't have to become your greatest weaknesses. The very experiences you wish had never happened may one day become the source of your greatest ability to help yourself and even, or perhaps especially, someone else.

Hashem doesn't waste pain. If we allow Him, He transforms it into strength.

Adopt a Better Attitude

Finally, we come to the fifth regret. In many ways, I believe it is the most important of them all.

As people looked back over their lives, many wished they had approached life with a better attitude. Now, that's easier said than done. Some of life's greatest lessons are learned only through living.

My late mother had the privilege of studying under Dr. Viktor Frankl, the renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor who wrote Man's Search for Meaning. Frankl endured the unimaginable horrors of Auschwitz, yet he emerged with one of the most profound insights ever expressed about the human spirit.

He wrote that everything can be taken away from a person except one thing: the freedom to choose one's attitude. That idea changed his life.

So the question becomes: how do we develop an attitude that remains hopeful, grateful, and resilient even when life is difficult?

Today, there are nearly nine billion people in the world. Of those billions, the Jewish people are a tiny fraction of humanity. The Torah teaches that we were entrusted with a unique covenant and a unique mission (Devarim 14:2). We are not simply another nation among nations. We have been given a distinctive spiritual calling. And within the Jewish people, only a percentage grow up with the privilege of learning that Hashem did not simply create the world and leave us to figure everything out on our own.

He gave us a roadmap; a spiritual GPS. The question is how to reach it with as few unnecessary detours as possible. None of us wants to learn the meaning of marriage after multiple failed marriages. None of us wants to learn financial wisdom only after repeated bankruptcies. Hashem, in His kindness, gave us guidance long before we would need it.

That guidance began at Har Sinai and continues to illuminate every area of life.

Bonnie Ware spent years listening to people in the final chapter of their lives. Again and again, they shared the same five regrets.

A)      They wished they had spent their time more wisely.

B)      They wished they had lived in the moment.

C)     They wished they had defined success differently.

D)     They wished they had embraced failure instead of fearing it.

E)       And they wished they had cultivated a better attitude toward life.

The remarkable thing is this. You don't have to wait until the end of your life to learn those lessons. You can begin living them today. And if you do, then when you eventually look back over your own life, your greatest emotion won't be regret. It will be gratitude.

Let Go

In addition to the above, over the years, as I've had the privilege of working with people from many walks of life, I've come to believe there are ten things we must learn to let go of if we want to become the people Hashem created us to be.

Let me share the first few with you.

Number one: Let go of allowing other people's opinions to control your life.

What other people think of you is, for the most part, none of your business. We often imagine that everyone is watching us, evaluating us, and judging our every move. They're not. Most people are too busy worrying about themselves. Each of us has been dealt a unique hand of cards by Hashem. The question isn't why someone else's hand looks better. The question is: how will I play mine? The moment you become consumed with comparison, you stop investing in your own mission. If you focus on becoming the person Hashem wants you to become, you'll have far less time for FOMO and far less temptation to keep looking over your shoulder.

Number two: Let go of the shame of past failures.

Every single person has failed and made mistakes. That's part of being human. Hashem didn't create angels. He created people with free will and the ability to grow. Every mistake can become a lesson. Never confuse having failed with being a failure. Those are two very different things. You may have failed at something, but no one is a failure.

Number three: Let go of indecision.

One of the great dangers in life is what psychologists call analysis paralysis. I've had people ask me for advice on important decisions. We discuss it carefully, they thank me, and then I see them five years later. Nothing has changed. They're still standing at the same crossroads.

I sometimes joke that the road of life is filled with flattened squirrels... that couldn't make up their minds. There are certainly times when we need to think carefully. But once you've sought wise counsel, gathered the facts, and davened for guidance, there comes a moment when you must make a decision and move forward. You don't have to make every decision perfectly. You just have to avoid making no decision at all.

Number four: Let go of procrastination.

One of the greatest thieves of potential is the belief that I'll start tomorrow. Tomorrow becomes next week. Next week becomes next month. Before long, years have passed. People nearing the end of life rarely regretted acting too soon. They regretted waiting too long. Don't keep kicking the can down the road. If something is worth doing, begin.

Today.

Number five: Let go of choosing comfort over growth.

 We live in a culture that celebrates being comfortable. "Just relax." "Just chill." "Take it easy." There is certainly a place for rest and Judaism values rest, the proof being Shabbos. But there is a profound difference between resting and drifting. Growth requires effort and action because the life you dream about will never be built by standing still. At some point, you have to get up, take responsibility, and move forward. Because the greatest opportunities in life almost always lie just beyond your comfort zone.

Just as there is physical gravity, there is also what I like to call spiritual gravity. If I let go of a pen, it will fall to the table. It can't help itself as gravity pulls it downward. Our spiritual lives work much the same way. If you are not intentionally moving upward, you will gradually drift downward. There is no such thing as standing still. If you don't take deliberate steps toward becoming the person Hashem created you to be, you will slowly begin to atrophy spiritually.

A few years ago, I attended a Harvard reunion. As I was talking to classmates, I heard someone describe another alumnus by saying, "Oh, he's the same old, same old." To me, that may be one of the saddest things you can ever say about a person. We're not supposed to be the same people we were ten years ago.

Life is meant to be a journey of continuous growth.

Number six: Let go of the need to always be right.

When I teach marriage classes, I often tell couples: you can be right... or you can be married. It's a joke, but only partly. Many of the greatest conflicts in life aren't caused by bad people. They're caused by stubborn egos. Look at the conflicts we see every day in public life. So often they are fueled by pride, status, and the inability to say three simple words: "I was wrong." One of the marks of genuine greatness is humility. Never underestimate the power of a sincere apology.

Number seven: Let go of avoiding difficult problems.

This is the other side of procrastination. If there's a difficult conversation you know you need to have, have it. If there's a phone call you've been putting off, make it. When I teach leadership and corporate training, I often give people one simple piece of advice: make the hardest phone call first. Don't wait until the end of the day. Early in the morning, your energy is highest, your emotional resilience is strongest, and your mind is freshest. The longer you postpone something difficult, the larger it becomes in your imagination. Most difficult conversations are never as frightening as the stories we tell ourselves beforehand.

Number eight: Let go of making excuses.

Successful people make decisions. Unsuccessful people make excuses. Every excuse keeps you exactly where you are. Every decision moves you forward. Growth begins the moment responsibility replaces blame.

Number nine: Let go of overlooking your strengths.

One of the saddest things I see is people who spend their entire lives focusing on their weaknesses while ignoring the extraordinary gifts Hashem has already given them. Every one of you possesses unique talents. No one else in history has been given your exact combination of gifts, experiences, challenges, and potential. You are here for a reason. Never underestimate the value of what Hashem has entrusted to you. The greatest gift you can give the world is becoming the person only you were created to be.

Number ten: Let go of distractions.

In an age dominated by what we call social media—which often feels more like anti-social media—the ability to stop, reflect, ask questions, and think deeply has become increasingly rare. Too many people are living lives of quiet desperation, constantly distracted, endlessly scrolling, yet never pausing to ask the most important questions:

Who am I? Why am I here? What kind of person do I want to become?

If you are reading this, you are part of a tiny percentage of people willing to invest time in discovering not only what to do with your life, but why you were given life in the first place. Never underestimate how extraordinary that is.

My heartfelt blessing for each and every one of you is that you live lives of purpose.

May you identify your big rocks. May you have the courage to define success by the Torah's standards. May you rise every time you fall. May you treasure the present moment.

And may you become the unique person Hashem created you to be.