The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Thrown Off-Balance)

Are we overdue to catch up, you and I? Let’s get some time on the calendar.

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There are few things in this world more disconcerting - and for some of us weirdos, empowering - than being thrown off balance.

“Everyone has a plan, until they get punched in the face.” - Mike Tyson

One of my favorite quotes.

Not because I go around asking to be punched in the face, G-d forbid.

Life has a way of doing it naturally, without being asked.

Say you get let go from a company where you love working (or hate working, more likely).

Or say, the weather forecast is awfully wrong and you get soaked and frozen and sick, when you thought it would be nice and warm outside.

You get super close to winning a project, but it slips out of your grasp.

Your major client suddenly quits.

You get cheated by someone you trust.

You lose your savings to a bad investment.

You’re forced to move from your home.

War breaks out.

Shit happens — and often.

One might even argue that it happens more than it doesn’t happen.

It’s just a question of whether you see it as shit or as fertilizer.

Live through enough of these things and you have no choice but to use the fertilizer, or lump yourself in with the shit forever.

It’s in this lovely vein that things are unfolding here.

As I sit in the Technion library, violinists are practicing for some sort of event.

My office mate, who hasn’t seen me in a while (been out on medical leave this month), stops to chat.

I’m no longer running English PR here, and it’s much for the best.

Petty politics, a bad fit, much back-stabbing and name-calling in my direction, along with gross ineptitude.

Even so, great experience getting my feet wet in the Israeli workforce.

Great for my Hebrew, good for my family.

A bit stashed away for retirement, never hurts.

I’m honestly glad to focus again on my main business and related projects.

It’s sunny again outside.

Yesterday, we had a surprise rain storm, a throwback to the winter we thought already ended.

I was badly late to pick up both my son and daughter, without a car, in the pouring rain.

Got reprimanded by the kindergarten teachers for it.

Had to walk back a second time to get my oldest.

Their pick-up times were reversed from the usual, hence the confusion and feeling “out of it.”

I stocked up on non-perishables a couple days back, got a proper flashlight and charge bank for our phones.

Nothing special, just preparing for fireworks from Hizballah up north.

As they state without exaggeration, their rockets and missiles can reach every inch of Israel, especially all of us in the North.

I was surprised that everyone I speak to has long been prepared, and I’m the laggard.

People remember the last time when missiles came this way, 18+ years ago.

For us, it’s all new.

The Gaza battle is entering its (hopefully) Grand Finale.

The IDF has been largely successful in its aims of neutralizing the 24 Hamas battalions, at least ¾ of them, to date.

The government is starting to prep residents of the North for the eventuality of conflict with Hizballah.

In fact, just as I was typing this, they called us downstairs into the “Safe Zone” as a drill.

I just red yesterday about hundreds (!!) of miles of Hizballah’s own tunnels in existence, some significant portion of them opening into the Galilee, mere tens of kilometers from us.

We’re only 40 km from the northern border here.

A suicide drone landed in a backyard in Akko (Acre) just yesterday.

It’s truly an exercise in whiplash to see the Israeli mentality in practice.

We’re all clearly traumatized (some much more than others, clearly), but very much staying positive and keeping up our spirits and faith.

All that despite glaring and atrocious examples of failed leadership still squarely in power across the political and military ranks.

The reckoning has barely started, but the pent-up anger is rising slowly.

The unifying force is the people’s army, as it has always been.

And so we have it, a season of being thrown off-balance.

Far from the first and far from the first severe one in our lives.

But nevertheless, a notable one.

Even as I look at the business side of things, there are several great partnerships in progress, a few conversations close to game-changing value that I’ll provide to all the great HR Tech, Ed Tech and Health Tech companies I’m talking to every week.

A few invitations to speak, a couple of awards coming through.

Much to be excited about, but also much waiting for things to go through, to be signed, to actually start delivering that value on full blast.

Will there be a war to upset all of this?

I don’t know. Maybe, likely, possibly.

Does it matter? Yes, but also not in a black-and-white way.

Some days bring unexpected lightness, like today.

Some bring confusion and disorientation, like yesterday.

It is a strange state, and it’s also somehow the most authentic.

Not by some prescription or recipe or rabbinic advice.

Simply by virtue of feeling the pulse of life deeply and continually.

Maybe it’s living in Israel, the Holy Land.

Maybe it’s life experience.

Putin’s killed Navalny, which may mean everything - or nothing, for now.

China’s saber-rattling at Taiwan is headed in one clear direction, sooner rather than later.

Iran’s supposedly told Hizballah not to initiate conflict, based on our reaction and successes in Gaza.

Sinwar is apparently dying from pneumonia (the faster, the better).

The U.S. is steaming toward a second, even crazier round of MAGA.

Does it matter?

Hard to say.

It’s all up to G-d Almighty, any which way.

The best I can do is to live life in the most positive and constructive way I can, according to my values, and to transmit those to my kids.

The rest is not up to me.

I’m not the Prime Minister, but I do my damnedest to be my own, ya know, commander-in-chief.

And there, as they say, there’s no democracy.

Have a great rest of the week, my friends.

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