Do you like to make choices?  Whether you do or not, it seems as though for each of us there is a never-ending stream of options that place demands upon our time and threaten the normal and easy flow of our lives. With the blessings of the information age, come even more options, more choices and a still greater demand upon our lives.

Forget about it! Just get over it! How does one achieve equanimity? Certainly not by ignoring those issues in our lives that create anxiety, fear and imbalance. Such a philosophy is akin to pretending that the check engine light on our dashboard is not lit. Anxiety can be a valuable warning signal indicative of issues that need to be considered and perhaps confronted. If nothing else, awareness is often half the battle.

I have always thought that cheshbon hanefesh, literally a reckoning with one’s own soul, was a practice most appropriate at the beginning of Elul, the month that precedes Rosh Hashanah. To this end Rabbi Israel Salanter, founder of the nineteenth century Mussar revival, undertook a forty day period of silence annually, from the beginning of Elul through Yom Kippur, to review his past year’s patterns of speech, to atone for wrongful speech, and to recapture the awe and sacredness of each word uttered.

In the fall of 1985 Hurricane Gloria worked its way up the eastern coast of the United States, eventually crossing the Long Island Sound and passing over Milford, Connecticut where I resided with my family. To the best of my knowledge, I had never before seen a category 4 hurricane or anything close to it.  So as the storm was developing over the small beach community, I drove to a public beach and parked in the empty municipal lot. As I trudged toward the beach, I fought through my way through the torrid winds and driving rain. I was able to get within about 100 yards of where low tide should have been before being hit with the spray of the crashing waves. This was the end of my misplaced bravado, and I ran back to my car and drove toward home and high ground.