You know who Buzz Aldrin is? Let me tell you who this man is. On July 20th, 1969, for the first time in the history of mankind, man stepped foot on the moon. The first person to step foot on the moon was a man named Neil Armstrong. Buzz Aldrin was the second guy. Buzz Aldrin was the second person off the rocket. His friends say that for the rest of his life, till his dying day, he spent more time regretting that he was second than appreciating that he was one of the people who stepped foot on the moon.
I want to tell you the truth. I understand it. Don’t tell me you don’t. You understand it too. Everybody makes a big deal: Neil Armstrong, “One step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” And he’s like, “I could have come up with that also. I could come up with a good line. Maybe my line even would have been better.” And everyone talks about him, and [unclear transition] you’re gonna sit here thinking about this.
So the next time you’re in your house and someone starts a conversation, or you’re a little insulted and maybe you have to spend a minute to get it out of your system because sometimes you are hurt that we have emotions and they are good, but then at some point you have to think about [unclear] you have to think about the greats. You have to think about Rav Kotler, the greats of our generation, and the greats of the previous generation. And you have to say to yourself, “Do I want to be a person who remembers 50 years later some guy’s comment to me in shul about the shirt? I should have even taken off my shirt.” When I'll bet you he doesn't even remember it when he left the room. 50 years later, you want to be that person? Do you want to be John Adams or this fellow Buzz Aldrin, at the end of your life and still thinking about these things? Or do you want to be a person who meets your potential, meets your greatness? Aharon (Aaron) wasn’t satisfied even with the Ketoret (incense), even with being the Kohen Gadol (High Priest) Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement), even all of those things. He wanted to know, “Am I doing enough? Am I doing even more?” So the next time you start getting caught up in your talking, in your texting, in your WhatsApp, just stop yourself and say, “Are we really having this conversation?”