Life’s curriculum is everywhere

Two university students were cruising toward A’s in chemistry. Overconfident, they overslept and missed the final exam. Thinking fast, they told their professor they’d been visiting a sick friend and got stranded on the way back because of a flat tire. Sympathetic, he let them take a makeup test, placing them in separate rooms. They were surprised to find a one-question-exam: “Which tire was flat?”

In life, we're constantly confronted with tests -- stuck in traffic, criticized at work, managing a child’s meltdown in the grocery store. Are these simply interruptions?

Classic wisdom teaches that life is a test even in the ordinary choices that fill our days. Today, we’ll explore what that means -- and how to navigate it with wisdom.

✨3 Ideas

1. What Defines a Test?

Life’s tests aren’t usually headline moments. How we deal with a difficult colleague, whether we hold a door for a stranger, the patience we summon with relatives.

Tests aren’t interruptions to your life; they are your life’s curriculum, disguised as ordinary moments. This is why classic wisdom teaches that everything -- yes, everything -- is a test of our character, containing potential to transform us.

Spiritual growth is rarely formed in the spotlight -- it’s built in daily, unglamorous choices. Every test, no matter how small, refines the soul.

2. Why Does Life Test Us?

Potential that’s never challenged stays dormant. Just as unused muscles atrophy, our spiritual capacities -- courage, compassion -- weaken when unexercised.

A flat line on an EKG means life has stopped. Only when the line rises and falls is the heart truly beating. So it is with the soul: highs and lows are signs of spiritual life.

The world is designed so that growth happens through tests. The challenges we’d rather avoid are often the very things that awaken our deepest strengths.

3. How Do We Navigate Tests Better?

Remove “impossible” from your vocabulary. Even in the secular world, this truth reveals itself. Formula 409 was named for the 409th attempt before success. Michael Jordan turned being cut from his high school team into fuel for greatness.

Most importantly, shift your perspective from “Why is this happening to me?” to “What can this make of me?” When we face difficulty without retreating, struggle becomes the catalyst of growth.

Challenges don’t diminish us. Every test passed nourishes and expands the soul.

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📜2 Quotes

“It is good for me that I was afflicted, so that I might learn Your instructions.”
— Psalms 119:71

“Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved. Silver is purified in fire -- and so are we. It is in the most trying times that our real character is shaped and revealed.”
— Helen Keller

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❓1 Question

What test do you find yourself facing on a daily or frequent basis?

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A lobster grows only when its rigid shell becomes tight and uncomfortable; that pressure forces it to shed the old and form a roomier one. Discomfort is what triggers its growth. The same is true for us. The tests we face, large and small, may feel confining, but each one holds the potential to expand us, strengthen us and deepen our spiritual life.

Until next time,
May the challenges you face become pathways to clarity, courage and growth.

Rabbi Ze'ev Smason

P.S. Did you recently face a test -- and pass with flying colors? I’d love to hear about the test you aced.

Enjoy this week’s message? Feel free to forward it to a friend who might appreciate a little strength for their own tests.