Interview with Simon Jacobson

Toward a Meaningful Life with Simon Jacobson
Radio Show Transcript – February 4, 2001

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

Jacobson: What about a person who just can’t bring himself to think well or can’t think good thoughts? I’m not looking for a quick gimmick, because I know there’s no quick answer to that, but how do you address that?

Lazaroff: It’s a very good question. The first thing I try to establish is knowing that the entire plan of creation is predicated on good, on love — that everything is good. Chessed olam yiboneh. G-d created everything with goodness and kindness. And that’s the basis for creation.

Now it may be trite to say in all circumstances “this is also good,” (as someone in the past is quoted as always saying: “Gamzu le’tova,” “This too is good”) because how do you see the good in very complicated or traumatic issues that have occurred in our own lives and instances? That’s problematic.

So once you establish that everything has a basis rooted in good, what I want people to establish in their own lives is something called “flow.” Things should go easily. Things should come to you and you shouldn’t have to scramble to make another dollar, to make this relationship always come out the way you’d like it to come out through arduous labor. When you know it could happen and it could come to you because you have this as your goal, then part of the success is knowing that this success is a gradual process and there are ups and downs, that’s part of life.

But by thinking good you accomplish two things: You can actualize your goal and help avoid and mitigate tremendously the number of negative influences in your life. Like a laser. Cutting through the vicissitudes and exigencies in life in order to reach that goal.

Sometimes the outcome may not be what you had in mind, but by thinking good you employ the powers of healing and the accessible forces in the cosmos that can make it happen for us in a very tangible, profound way of revealed good.

Download the full interview here