Have you ever set out to think about something in a methodical way, only to lose the thread of your thoughts and find yourself dwelling on another topic entirely?
You want to plan your Yom Tov menu but end up rehashing a recent conversation in your mind instead. You’d like to figure out the solution to a problem at work but find yourself daydreaming about your upcoming vacation. Nowhere is this tendency more glaring than when we daven. At the tefillah’s opening words we are totally there, focused on Hashem’s greatness and beneficence. By the end of the paragraph, however, we’re as likely as not reciting those glorious words by rote while wondering what to have for breakfast.
I remember when my kids became old enough to let me finally start davening more than just the things I’d learned in school. Each new tefillah I introduced into my morning regimen filled me with delight. Unfortunately, it didn’t take long for that to change. As soon as the words grew familiar, both the new and old tefillos became subject again to the same wandering thoughts. No matter how hard I try, it’s difficult not to sometimes lose the thread.
It’s a good thing that Yom Kippur comes around just once a year, ensuring that our davening is filled with renewed freshness and urgency each time. Incredibly, and sadly, the human mind is capable of letting itself get distracted even when our very lives are on the line.
Distraction is the name of the twenty-first century game. With devices pinging and phones ringing practically non-stop, our attention skitters around like a drop of water in hot oil. We jump from call to call, from message to message, from one task to another, rarely letting ourselves settle fully into one thing at a time. And our relationships suffer for it.
How many times have I seen a parent and child walking down the street together, except that they’re not really together. While the child is fully in the present, the parent is busy on his or her phone. Mobile technology may be the best thing since sliced bread, but there’s no question that carrying the world around in one’s pocket can be… distracting.
Somehow, our lives have become so jam-packed with busyness that we hardly have the leisure anymore to just be. I remember long ago summers in the bungalow colony when I was a child. I’d go out
into the field near the pool with a pad and pen, find a tree to sit under and dream the hours away. Often, I’d have a completed poem at the end of it. But even if I didn’t, I thoroughly enjoyed the peacefulness of nature and a bit of solitude carved out of my otherwise sociable existence.
In life, one thing leads to another. You make a decision, which in turn affects your next decision, and so on. After a time, you may wake up one morning and ask yourself, “How did I get here?” You can clearly remember a time and place when things were different. When you were different. Events and choices have moved you from there to here, almost without you realizing it. You feel as if you’ve lost the thread of your own life.
It’s so easy to lose the thread of even our closest relationships. Unless we make a concerted effort to stay connected, the rush and sweep of our obligations can loosen our hold of the vital rope that binds us. When that happens, we end up floundering in the water, feeling alone even when we’re with other people.
Feeling Stuck
If decisions and changes can lead to unexpected and sometimes unwanted places, there’s a risk even when our lives are routine and predictable of losing something vital. While others experience novel twists and turns, moving here, switching jobs there, and generally generating sparks of interest wherever they go, a person can live for decades in the same way as when they started out. Now, there’s nothing wrong with stability. But it needs to be spiced with the sense of curiosity and adventure that leads to growth. Otherwise, they’ll find that they run no risks and launch no new ventures. Family-wise, they’re in a rut. Emotionally, they’re practically dead in the water. Nothing is new anymore. Nothing is exciting.
What they’ve lost is the thread of enthusiasm that once ignited their days. They used to wake up interested to see what the day would bring. Now they feel stuck in a trap of sameness.
On the outside, everything looks the same. It’s on the inside that you feel disconnected from the eager, vital person you once were. You’ve let life wear you down. When everything seems stagnant, the only sane response is boredom. You can hardly remember what you were like before. You’ve lost the thread.
What we need to do when we feel as though one or more of the crucial threads of our lives have slipped through our fingers is do whatever it takes to find it again. Bonding with our spouses and connecting with our children is not optional. Not if you want to have a happy family. Ditto for creating a solid bond with Hakadosh Boruch Hu. The problem is that the boredom and discouragement that arises from disconnection can sap our energy and make it hard to do what is needed to find our way back again.
The first step is always the hardest. And that first step is recognizing that we’ve lost the thread of who we are and what’s important to us. That we’ve let the current of our ill-considered decisions or our apathy or our mistakes carry us far from where we intended to go. Marooned on an island or tedium, we realize that we’ve allowed repetition and familiarity to blunt our enthusiasm for the things that are most important to us. Shipwrecked on the shores of confusion, we struggle to return to dry land.
Sometimes it’s necessary to walk through quicksand to get back to firm ground. Each step feels like a slog. It’s hard to pick up your feet and keep moving forward. For much of the way, the scenery will look just the same. Unhopeful. Unchanged. But if we persist, the mud gradually becomes thinner and our step lighter.
By the time we reach journey’s end, we’ll have the rope of connection firmly in our grasp again, rewarded beyond our fondest dreams.
Once we recognize the starting point and take those first steps, we can begin to focus. We can push distractions aside because we realize that they are mere distractions, unworthy of the lion’s share of our thoughts and efforts. Instead of letting the endless details of life bog us down, we can struggle to recapture the lifeline that links us to our loved ones, to our Creator, and to ourselves.
Instead of wondering how we got here, we can buckle down and make the most of where we are.
Because the only thing to be done when you’ve lost the thread is to patiently start over and pick it up again.