From the time someone is a child, they look at the world ahead of them and say, “I hope I can make it in this world.” You have no idea the pressure that’s on a 10-year-old or a 15-year-old. I always loved telling this story. When I was at Magen David, maybe I had been at the school for five, six years, and I met with a group of boys who were talking about the different things on their minds and their pressures. I went to the principal at the time and said to him, “These boys think they have pressures. Wait till real life comes, and they’ll see what pressure is. You know, pressure with a friend, annoyance from a parent, not doing well on a test—like, nonsense.”
The principal was an experienced educator at the time, and he said to me, “No, you don’t realize their pressures are way greater than adult pressures, because adults somewhat know that they can navigate the world. When they’re 15, 16 years old, they have no idea if they’re gonna be able to navigate the world. They have no idea if they’re able to navigate the world, so every small pressure feels like a big deal.”
Every person that age is thinking about their future: “Will I ever get married? Will I ever have a family? Will I ever succeed? Will I ever be relevant? Will I ever be someone that the world cares about and wants and appreciates?” Those are the thoughts in people’s heads, in young people’s heads. Then they go about building their life, and they’re hopeful that one day they’ll succeed. They go about building their life, and if things go easily, as expected or hoped, they might get married and have children. And, you know, if they want to work, they might make money, or if they’re learning, they might find a position at a school or a yeshiva, something they were hoping for. They sort of get to what they were hoping to get to, and then they realize that all success in the world doesn’t fill that hole. They thought they had this hole from childhood, and they thought that when it happened, the hole would fill. Once the hole fills, they’re gonna feel good, and A, B, and C, and maybe D, E, F, and G also happen, and it still doesn’t fill the hole.
You know, this is true. You know, I know this is true. If you have a daughter in high school—I don’t know if anyone here has a daughter in high school—but if you have a daughter in high school, you know that this girl thinks that one day she’s gonna get married and life is gonna become perfect. You know about these daughters, who think that when they get married, they will become perfect. They’ll get married, and it’ll be perfect. Life is going to become perfect. And you laugh at them because you’re like, “You get married, that’s when the problems are going to start. You have no idea what problems are till you get married.” But they think in their minds that you can’t convince them otherwise. They’re so convinced that once they achieve what they consider success, which for a girl in high school is getting married, once they achieve what they consider success, everything after that flows. They don’t realize that that’s not what happens, because no matter what success you achieve, it doesn’t fill the hole.