My employer has given me a cell phone for work. When I first started using it, I received a lot of spam text messages. Ironically, many of them were very much not safe for work! One day, though, a message caught my attention. It asked, “Could you be a stand-up comedian if you had training? Click here to find out!”
For a brief moment, I actually wondered if it might be true. Could I be a stand-up comedian? I’m witty. I like to talk. I’m Jewish. Maybe all I really need is a stage, a microphone, and some training. I didn’t click the link – since it was probably malware anyway – so I suppose we’ll never know.
Still, the question stuck with me.
I found myself thinking about that advertisement again recently, as the Gregorian new year approached and I was bombarded with messages about “new year, new you.” I have nothing against resolutions or goals for self-improvement. Wanting to grow is a good thing. What gave me pause was the way companies seize these moments to sell us products that promise to transform our lives, even though they rarely help us become who we actually want to be.
Most of these ads follow a familiar script. They ask questions like, “Are you a millennial parent barely holding it all together?” or promise, “We can make you the PERFECT parent!” The core message is always the same: you are lacking, and we have the solution, for a cost.
Like anyone else, I’m tempted by these promises. In the final days of 2025, I even paid for a subscription to a new app that was supposed to improve my life. I downloaded it. I have not opened it since—not even once.
The tension between who we are and who we think we should be has always existed. There’s a story from Chasidic tradition about a 17th-century rabbi named Zusya. Near the end of his life, Zusya began to cry. His students were confused. Given all the mitzvot—good deeds and commandments—he had fulfilled, surely he had nothing to fear about the world to come, Olam Ha-Ba.
Zusya explained that he was afraid because he knew the questions he would face. HaShem wouldn’t ask him, “Why weren’t you more like Moses?” or “Why weren’t you more like King David?” Instead, his creator would ask him, “Why weren’t you more like Zusya?”
For me, this story offers a powerful spiritual reminder. It challenges me to discover and live as my true, authentic self, rather than trying to imitate anyone else. It reminds me of my own unique potential, that HaShem has given me specific gifts with a purpose, and that in my life, He will give me opportunities to use them. I’m also reminded that my spiritual curriculum, and daily challenge, is to live up to the potential of who I am, not who someone else is or who I think I am supposed to be.
I see this lesson reflected most clearly in my parenting. Every day, my children show me something about myself. Sometimes it’s when they repeat my own words back to me. Other times, it’s when I notice a trait in them that I recognize instantly—often uncomfortably—as my own. Parenting has a way of holding up a mirror, whether we ask for it or not.
Ultimately, I believe that my task in this life – the one I will be asked to account for in Olam Ha-Ba – is to be as much like my best, truest self as I can be. How well did I use the gifts I was given? How often did I allow my neshama, my soul, to shine through? Did my children know how deeply I love them? Did they see my love of Judaism and of Am Yisrael, the Jewish people?
As I begin 2026, I’m trying to let every targeted advertisement serve as a reminder. I don’t need a new version of myself. I don’t need a new app, a new system, or even a new year to start over. Instead, I need to keep cultivating the unique parts of my character that were thoughtfully and lovingly placed within me. Each day offers an opportunity to practice being myself—as fully, honestly, and vibrantly as I can.