Fixing Your Focus - 008 Quickly Connecting & Then Destroying

Fire-of-Water: Quickly Connecting To Something & Then Quickly Disconnecting From It 

With siyata d’shmaya, we continue here to learn about the power of focus. We are now up to discussing focus-related issues which stem from the element of “fire-of-water”.

As explained earlier, the element of water can “drag” a person. The “fire” aspect of water is when a person is “dragged” after something in a “destructive” manner, just as fire destroys. This is when a person is pulled into something for a temporary amount of time, and the reason for this is because the connection does not last long anyway – and he is the one who causes the connection to cease. We will explain this further.

Example 1 – Attending A Lesson & Quickly Dropping Out

A person may become ‘dragged’ after something but then he quickly pulls away from it. For example, a person may go to hear a shiur from a certain person, and he is so impressed and enthusiastic about the shiur that he decides to attend it on a regular basis. After two or three weeks of attending it, he becomes disillusioned, and he is disappointed with it, feeling that it’s not what he thought it would be. He loses his esteem for it and he stops coming.

Example 2 – Befriending Someone & Quickly ‘Dumping’ Him

Another example: A person meets someone, begins talking to him, and as the conversation goes on, he connects very much with the other’s personality and he becomes enamored by the other person. He feels confident that he has found the “true friend” in his life. Apparently, he had been searching his whole life for the person who would become his “true friend”, and now, he feels like he has finally found that true friend. His new “friend” has a very likeable personality, he is honest and he is trustworthy, he acts loving to all people. He finds that they have similar thoughts and views about life, and that they share a common language. After some time, however, the person who was the “befriender” slowly realizes, “Is that all there is to him? Eh, I could find someone better than this.” And he severs the connection.

Example 3 – Buying A Product & Quickly Losing Interest In It

In another example of this nature, a person sees a new product in a store window and he instantly likes it. He quickly buys it, without too much thinking about how much he really needs it or not. After some use of the item, he begins to feel, “It’s too hard to use. It doesn’t work as good as I thought it would.”

Quickly Destroying A Connection To Something of Significance

There are many other examples as well of this, in which a person enters into something without any awareness about it [and soon ‘grows out’ of whatever he connected to]. We addressed this point (of entering into something without awareness), in the previous chapter, but here we are discussing an additional factor, “fire-of-water”, in which a person becomes enthused about something, is dragged after it without any thinking, and instantly connects to it. He will pull away from it just as quickly as he was pulled after it. Just as he was pulled towards it without doing too much thinking or reflection about it, so does he quickly destroy any of his connection to it, without giving that much thought about it.

If it was only a small thing that he slowly grew out of, such as a new table or something else which he has stopped enjoying because he longer finds it useful, that’s understandable. But in other scenarios, a person may become ‘dragged’ very much after something and he felt heavily connected to it, and suddenly he grows of it, quickly ‘destroying’ his connection to it.

The Destructive Nature

Just as fire is the element that destroys things, so does a person with a lot of fire in his personality the type to “destroy” whatever he encounters – not in the active sense, of course, but to act destructive with his mind, by immediately disregarding the worth of something. When meeting any person, he has the nature to immediately look for some fault in the other person. When looking at a house or a car that they want to buy, he right away looks for something wrong with it.  

In some cases, the person has rectified his nature of fire, and his nature of ‘destruction’ is used for holy purposes – he will always be unsatisfied with his current spiritual level, because he always seeks to grow to higher levels. But many times, when a person has a strong amount of fire in his soul, it is usually the negative side to fire: the trait of conceit. In others, their negative fire manifests as a nature to simply ‘destroy’ everything they encounter, because they feel inwardly empty inside, and this makes them sad and negative. Their negativity is manifest in how they immediately disregard the value of anything they encounter.

When a person has this nature to ‘destroy’, this can be manifest in how he thinks, speaks, and acts. As mentioned, person may mentally ‘destroy’ others in his mind, by always finding fault with them and thereby disregarding their worth. A person may also have a nature of constantly speaking negatively about others, and these are people who regularly speak lashon hora, who often speak of anything bad they can find about others, expressing all of their negative views about everyone and everything. And, finally, a person may act out his destructive nature, by causing physical damage to others or by physically hurting them. In any case, though, a person with a strong amount of negative fire has a nature of constantly nullifying and disregarding the value of something.

The nature to disregard the importance of things is a product of the general nature of fire, but in this lesson, we are discussing specifically the nature of “fire”-of-water, which contains both aspects of water and fire. The nature of fire-of-water is when a person is only destructive towards the very things he connects to. This kind of person is not trying to destroy and disregard everything he encounters - rather, he has the specific problem of becoming drawn to a certain thing and quickly destroying his connection to it.

Losing Awareness

Part of the problem here is that he has become drawn after something\someone without being aware of it happening. Earlier, when we spoke about impaired wind-of-water, we discussed the problem in which one does not clearly see the reality, because he has temporarily lost awareness.

A person may be eating something he likes and he keeps eating it; he is ‘dragged’ into the act, more and more. Even if he wasn’t aware that he is starting to overeat, if we stop him and we get him to think about what he is doing, it may dawn on him that he is eating out of gluttony, and not out of a desire to sustain himself and keep healthy. A higher level of awareness would be if he becomes aware that he has become ‘dragged’ into the act of eating.

In another scenario, a person sees a certain product in the store, he is drawn after it, and he buys it. If you ask him why he bought it and if he really needs it, he may have the mature awareness to admit, “I really didn’t need it at all. I bought it simply because it will give me some enjoyment.” He is aware that he doesn’t need it and that he will not be using it that much. He may be well aware that it will only provide him with a good feeling for a very short amount of time. He is aware that he has become ‘dragged’ after it.

In the above two examples, the person is fully aware that he is becoming ‘dragged’ after something he doesn’t need. But most people, if they see an item in the store which they feel drawn towards and they quickly buy it, will not admit that they don’t really need it. They are convinced that they somehow need it. They ‘connect’ to it, and after some time, they grow out of the item that they liked so much, and they say that it is useless.

Every day, there are stories where people buy things they think are useful, and after some time they realize that they don’t need what they bought. These are both examples of not being aware that one was being ‘dragged’ after something. The person was so ‘dragged’ after something that he lost awareness of what was happening. After some time, the person will realize that he doesn’t really need the item, and he quickly disregards it. He will feel that the item is totally worthless and useless to him – ‘destroying’ it totally. This depicts the nature of fire-of-water.

How Quickly Connecting & Disconnecting Impairs Focus

Now let us see how this relates to our topic, focus.

Focus is a power in which one is in a state of remaining connected [mentally] to a thought. When there is connection to something, there is permanence. When one is not connected to something, he focuses on it much less. If a person is the type to think things through, he will first think before he connects to something, so his connection will be more precise. He will therefore be able to focus on it for a longer amount of time, because his connection to it is more solid.

But if he connected to something without first thinking it through, what inner process is taking place in his soul? He will connect too much to something, being ‘dragged’ after it, and he will soon realize that he was not being realistic. He quickly feels that he has no more connection to it anymore, ‘destroying’ it in his mind entirely. What nature does his soul learn to acquire from this pattern? As time goes on with these patterns, he learns how to connect, destroy, connect, destroy, etc. As a result, he ruins his power to remain connected to anything.

These kinds of people are the type who keep moving from apartments to another, who keep switching their jobs, and who keep switching - their wives! This is also the type of person to keep replacing his sefarim, his music, his car, etc.

They keep switching and replacing everything, because their problem is that they connected too fast to something, with excitement and without doing that much thinking beforehand, and soon after, they ‘destroy’ the connection. They come to view everything as disposable, with a one-time use. This kind of pattern is the total opposite of what it means to stay focused.

We mentioned that that this pattern of “quick connection, followed by quick destruction” can be manifest in the areas of thought, speech, and action. When a person is only mentally destructive to the things he is connected to, he is still somewhat connected to it, because he has only disconnected from it in his mind, and the thing in question is still in his possession.

For example, there are people who buy expensive homes near the ocean, who spend millions of dollars on these homes, as long as they have the means to do so. They go to the ocean one day and they take a sniff of the air there, and say, “Ah, this air is so pleasant.” They look into buying a home near the ocean, where they can always smell the pleasant air of the beachfront, and they immediately buy such a home. How many times does he visit his new home by the ocean? A few times, and then winter comes, and there’s no point anymore to visit it. After some time, though, he regrets his purchase, and he is disappointed. It wasn’t what he thought it would be.

For those familiar with these kinds of stories, they know that half of these beachfront homes are quickly up for sale again. The person who bought it had made an emotionally-based decision, without doing that much thinking, and soon after, he no longer feels his emotional attraction towards it, he has grown out of it and feels like he made a mistake.

Another kind of person will not sell the home, because he put so much time, effort, and money into it. Instead, though, he “mentally” destroys the connection he had with this new home, by thinking to himself, “I made such a huge mistake in buying it.” He ‘destroys’ it in his mind. Although he won’t try to get rid of the house by selling it, he no longer feels connected to the home, because he has mentally ‘destroyed’ his connection to it.

If he verbalizes his upset about it and he tells others that he made a big mistake in buying it, he is “verbally” destroying the connection. Finally, he may destroy his connection to it in the active sense, by putting up his home for half the price he bought it for, because he is so disillusioned with it that he just wants to get rid of it already.

When a person has this nature, he is quickly replacing things, getting rid of them, and replacing them again. As we explained, this can be manifest in the areas of thought, speech, and action.

The Problem of Constantly Severing Relationships

In another scenario of this nature, which is a very important example that illustrates the problem, a person may suddenly sever his connection to a close friend of his. In an emotionally healthy scenario, a person gets to know someone and slowly becomes friends with him, as time goes on. But sometimes a person can become instantly connected to a certain person, connecting with him very fast, and therefore, he may also ‘dump’ him just as fast.

What is the result? A person like this becomes very disappointed with the entire world. He meets people, instantly connects with them, and then instantly grows out of them. For example, if he befriends someone who is known as a trustworthy person, the amount of trust that he accords him is way more than the amount of trust that should be coming to him. What happens, as a result? He will always be disappointed with the world.

Of course, every person experiences disappointment with others. We cannot totally trust anyone, because no one is perfect. That is the reality of living. But when a person has a strong amount of fire-of-water, he will suffer much more disappointment with others, because he instantly connects with certain people and then he quickly loses interest in them – which is very disappointing. As a result, his relationships with others become shaky and uncertain, because he feels like no one can be trusted. And when he is amongst people, he will have a hard time focusing also, since he is feeling so untrusting of them.

When it comes to marriage as well, this nature of fire-water can be very problematic. A boy may become engaged to a girl and at first he feels excited about her, but as the engagement period continues, he loses his initial excitement, to the point that he doesn’t really want to marry her. He talks it over with others and they tell him that he must get married to her. So he marries her. But in his mind, he has already severed the connection with her.

Others will take it further – they will openly tell their spouses that they are now no longer interested in them. In this scenario, the person is verbally severing the connection. Others with this nature have become, Baruch Hashem very experienced with marriages – they are already in their fourth marriage….

Where a person keeps switching and replacing whatever he dislikes for whatever he now likes, and repeating the cycle, as time goes on like this, he loses his very power to connect. If he loses interest in his car, that’s a small issue. If he loses interest in his house, that’s a little more problematic. But if he wants to switch his family members and his close friends, and he severs his relationships with them, what happens? He loses his soul’s power to properly connect. He will lose the very concept of what it means to connect with others. He won’t have any ability to trust others, because he has no concept of connecting to them. Inwardly, his soul becomes scattered - and he will not be able to be that focused, as a result.

If he is a very inner and spiritual kind of person, he will despair from connecting to anyone on this world, and he will instead connect only with the spiritual, such as the holy Torah, and HaKadosh Baruch Hu, as well as a deep connection with his own inner self. He will at least be using his power to connect. Generally speaking, though, one who reaches a deep connection to himself, to the Torah, and to Hashem is not the kind of person who will traverse the problem we are describing in this chapter (because if he can reach such deep connections, he is not the type to have severed his power of connection in the first place).

In summary, there is a problem one may have in which he has lost his power to connect, because he has gone through a long cycle of always switching and replacing, which has become his very attitude in life.

Sensible Renewal

Others have a similar nature of always replacing what they like and enjoy, but for a different reason: they always need renewal. This kind of person always needs something new to keep him going. For example, there is a kind of person who, once every few years, will want to renovate his entire home – including everything in it. Everything in the house must be replaced.

Without getting into if this is sensible behavior or not, our point here is that there is a nature in some people to quickly switch and replace everything, simply because they need renewal. This does not come from a problem of destroying connections, which we discussed earlier, but from a different attitude – a need for some kind of renewal. Through replacing and switching things, that is how the person gets his renewal. For this person, it is not enough to replace his pants. Small replacements will not feed his need for renewal. He needs to switch bigger things in his life, in order to feel renewal.

However, as long as he does so with the awareness that he is trying to gain renewal – for example, if he keeps davening from a different kind of siddur, or if he is often switching the places where he davens, or if he is usually switching the type of clothing he is wearing – if he does so with the awareness that he is giving himself some renewal, this is a sign of a healthy soul.

Insensible Renewal

One should not go extreme with this idea, of course, and it is a subtle ability in the soul which should be used sensibly. If a person keeps switching and replacing things without any awareness that he needs some renewal, he will fall into the same problem which we discussed earlier, of a person who keeps destroying whatever he is connected to.

The problem we discussed earlier, fire-of-water, is when a person keeps ‘destroying’ whatever he connected to. But here we are describing a similar power, which is not negative, when used sensibly: The need to renewal. When one switches and replaces things with the awareness that he could use some renewal, and when he does so in a sensible manner, he will develop a sense of what he can remain with, and what he can throw away.

But, as mentioned, if this idea is not used sensibly, a person will keep switching and renewing things without any restraint, which is the same problem as the person who constantly destroys his connections.

As an example, a person has a close friend for a long amount of time, and one day, he severs the relationship. Someone meets him and asks him, “Why are you no longer friends with that person? What happened between you?” He responds, “Nothing happened. There was no particular reason.”

He simply grew out of his close friend and now he wants a new one. He has no awareness that he has a need for renewal, and he is not ready to admit that he needed to sever this friendship so that he could find a new one. He has the same problem as the person who keeps destroying his connections.

Fixing The Nature of Constantly Replacing 

To practically fix this issue, we will once again make use of the solution that was explained in the previous chapter: (1) One needs to develop at least one area in his life which has a stable connection to. (2) Along with this, whenever a person wants to switch and replace something in his life, it should be done with awareness [that he is making a switch].

What should be his awareness? Firstly, as mentioned, he needs to already have one area of stable connection in his life. After this factor is in place, he will then become more grounded when it comes to his nature to switch and replace – with regards to people he is associated with, or when it comes to his own physical needs, or when it comes to various desires he has. Since he already has an area of stable connection in his life, he is strongly connected to something, so he will be somewhat balanced.

There are people who can jolt their entire life in one moment, when they are missing this balance. The following example illustrates the difference between a person who is balanced and aware, with one who is not, when it comes to this nature of switching and replacing.

A person may be working at a certain job and he really wants to work at a different job, and in addition, he may also want to move to a different apartment. If he has a bit more balanced in his soul, he will be aware that if he leaves his job, it is unrealistic for him to leave his current apartment, and if he leaves his apartment, it is unrealistic for him to also leave his job. This is because he has the awareness that too many transitions at once will not allow his soul to be at any peace.

However, if he is a person who lacking awareness to his soul, he makes quick transitions as soon as he can. He sees an ad for a new home and immediately is interested in buying it, and he starts making the phone calls. If a new job opportunity is presented to him, he is at the new job two days later.

What happens to him inwardly, if he goes through all of these changes in quick succession of each other? He does not process the fact that he is disconnecting from what he has previously been connected to. On an intellectual level, he may be correct in wanting to make those changes to his current situation (many times he is wrong, but let’s assume that he is indeed logical in wanting to move or switch jobs), but he cannot actually deal with these changes right now. Even if he really does need to move or find a new job, the fact is that he cannot make all these changes all at once. Why? Because if he feels strongly connected to his job or to his home, he cannot disconnect from both of them at once. Maybe he will be able to give up either the home or the job, but he can’t do both at once. It’s too much for him. 

Thus, the idea is that whenever a person does need to disconnect from something, it needs to be balanced with an ability to have a stable connection to something.

Certainly, if a person has little self-awareness, all our words here will do nothing for him. But the more a person is living a more inner kind of life and he is interested in living a life that is more precise with the truth, he will be aware of whatever he is connected to, and he is aware of any of the challenges involved in whatever he is connected with. He is also aware that there are things he needs to switch and replace. But when he makes any switches, he does so slowly and sensibly, and he does not make too many changes at once.

In contrast to this, when a person has not balanced this nature, he makes too many changes at once, without thinking of the outcome. In one period of time, he moves to a different home, he switches all of his children to different schools, each of his children are having problems, and soon, there is a lot of tension in the home, and he doesn’t understand why….

He may even have consulted with his Rav every step of the way. He asked his Rav if he should move, and the Rav said he should. He asked his Rav if he should switch his children’s schools, and he was told that he should. He broke up the issue into many different points, each time asking the Rav about a specific point, and each time he was told that it’s okay. The problem is that he didn’t present the entire picture of what was happening. He only relayed the details, separately, but without presenting the totality of the situation. Then he finds himself in a difficult situation, even though he consulted with a Rav every step of the way…

This is a problem that happens often – when people are working with one particular issue at a time, without focusing on the bigger picture of the issue. Many times you can meet a person who has landed himself in a lot of trouble, and you can ask him how he got into such a situation. It is possible that he acted correctly for each step of the way, but the problem is that when all the steps add up together… had he known the outcome, he never would have taken even one of these steps. Even if he consults with a Rav for each step of the way when he made all of these changes – which clearly shows that he was acting logical with each step that he took – in the totality of the situation, he did not act correctly.

This point is really part of a separate discussion, but what is relevant for our current topic to know is, that this person has connected to too many things at once by making so many changes at the same time, like a convert joining Judaism, who is considered to be born anew. As a result, this person will not really be connected to anything.

In Summary and In Conclusion

Thus, the first part of the solution [for a person who quickly connects to something\someone and then quickly severs his connection – which is due to impaired fire-of-water in the soul] is for one to be aware of his connection to something when he immediately becomes interested in it; and if he wasn’t aware of what was taking place, he should now become aware that he has allowed himself to become ‘dragged’ into it.

What should he become aware of? He should be aware of what he can expect, as well as what he should not expect, from whatever he is trying to connect to. In that way, he saves himself from being totally disappointed with it. Even if he becomes somewhat disappointed with whatever he has connected to, it will be a lot less, since he was already aware beforehand of the deficiencies here, so he will not ‘destroy’ his connection to it so quickly. He will know: “What was I expecting here? What disappointment can I anticipate with it?” This is already the first step of the solution: when he learns how to initially connect to something in a more balanced way.

The second part of the solution, as mentioned, is that even when a person does switch and replace something because he has grown out of it, he first needs to identify areas in his life which he has a stable and strong connection to. He should also make the replacement with the awareness that he needs some renewal; and he should also make sure that he is not replacing too many things at once.

When one knows how to properly connect, he is then able to deeply focus – both in his thoughts and in his emotions. The more balanced and precise that one’s power of connection becomes, the higher quality of focus he can have. There will always be some situations where our connection to something or someone is severed, and this is due to Hashem’s will, which is not of our choice. But even in the situations where we choose to sever our connection to something, we need to so in the proper and balanced way, as we have been explained here, with siyata d’shmaya.