We've been talking about the trait of Savlanut/ tolerance . Rav Wolbe, in his sefer Alei Shur ( vol 2 page 216), says that first a person has to condition himself to get the idea of tolerating others. But he says, a person also has to learn how to tolerate himself. What does that mean? Sometime a person is trying to work on a trait, such as tolerating people. He decided, “ Hey, that's a great thing to work on. I really need to work on tolerance. I don't have tolerance for people,” and he’s been working on that for the past few days. He is going to see that he is not as strong as he thought he was. You really can't beat this bad trait so quickly. So you might forget about it. You might not be so stable and you'll get Yetzer Hara attacks. So now what? He quotes a midrash, which is also quoted by Rabbenu Yona in Shaar Teshuva ( Shaar 2, אות כו ), explaining the mishna in Pirkei Avot: וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי מָה אֲנִי, כְּשֶׁאֲנִי לִי לְהִשְׁתַּדֵּל לְתַקֵּן נַפְשִׁי בְּכָל כֹּחִי, וַאֲנִי הוֹגֶה בַּחָכְמָה בְּכָל עֵת, מָה אֲנִי, כִּי הַשָּגַת הָאָדָם קְצָרָה וְדַלָּה, וְעִם הַטֹּרַח וְהַתִּקּוּן יַשִּיג מְעַט מִן הַמַּעֲלוֹת. רְאֵה מִי אֲנִי וּמֶה חַיַּי כְּשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי לְהִשְׁתַּדֵּל When am I for myself, what am I? Even when a person tries to fix himself, with all his strength, and is constantly working on myself, still he says, What am I? Because of my abilities are limited. With all the hard work I put in, I'm only going to produce a few good qualities. He gives a mashal of a very low grade field. Even with all the hard work you put in, and all that you do to try to fix it, it’s still only going to produce a very small crop. But if you don't work on it, then it's only going to produce weeds and thorns and thistles. And he says from Avot D’Rebe Natan perek טז on the Pasuk in Tehilim (103,14), where David Hamelech says כִּי הוּא יָדַע יִצְרֵנוּ God knows our Yetzer Hara, that it’s comparable to a king that gives a field to his servants and tells them to guard and watch it, and bring 30 pounds a year. And they work hard but they can only bring five pounds. The king asks,” What's going on? What'd you do? I asked you for 30 pounds!” And they say, “ Our master, the king, the field that you gave us is a very low grade. We tried our hardest, and with all our hard work, this is all we produced.” This is an important concept, says Rav Wolbe This field you gave us, it's low grade. And therefore, he says, “ Woe to someone that doesn't have tolerance with himself, who is very quick to despair from service of God entirely,” someone who says, “ Forget it. I tried to work on tolerance for two weeks and it's not working.” Even if he doesn't despair, when he pushes through, he's going to be depressed. And there's nothing that ruins service of God more than being down and depressed. He says, Human nature, is that when we start serving Hashem, we want fast results, instant gratification. We think, “I heard that you're supposed to pray with kavana, so I’ll just try, and Boom! I'm going to be able to pray all my prayers with kavana from beginning to end. And one by one, I'm going to go through Mesilat Yesharim and knock off every Middah. If I just stick to it by the end of the year I'll be a Gadol Hador.” Then, how despaired and frustrated we become when we don't see it happening. So we have to realize this important rule- that in everything that we're trying to do, slow and steady wins the race. You can't overload, you can't exaggerate. As the Gemara in Kedushin (17A) says, If you try to grab a lot you're not going grab anything. And if you try to get a little bit, you can get that little bit. And even with that little bit that we can do, we're going to stumble and mess up. But don't despair. Keep pushing forward. Now, at the same time, there is a catch: Don't now be overly tolerant with yourself and just accept the situation and become apathetic to change. Don’t say, “ Okay, that's it. I got a garbage field. I'm not working. I'm just going to sit down and throw in the towel.” No, I have to keep working steadily at it and fall and get up. As Mishleh says, (24,16) The Sadik falls seven times and he gets up . And if we stick to it, eventually we will be successful. That is this important rule called Tolerance with yourself. Have a great day.