As a kid, I remember going to the dentist’s office and seeing Highlights Magazine
Invariably each issue contained a page with an ink drawing on it and the words, “What’s wrong with this picture?”
The drawing usually had a bunch of seemingly normal objects in it. But if you looked closer, you’d see something like a fish in the toaster slot, a boat on land, or a cat with six legs.
Inadvertently, I got quite good at this game of finding what’s wrong. I got too good.
Today, I look for “what’s wrong with this picture” everywhere. I’m always looking for “What’s wrong with this? How could that be improved?”
I’m not just talking about hindsight and the Monday morning “quarterbacking” that occurs when we reflect on past performance so that future change can occur. My “What’s wrong with this picture?” isn’t about what I did wrong – it’s about what IS wrong in my present environment. When I sit and meditate, predictably, I come up with lists of things I should be improving.
It seems, based on my experience, that there will always be things that seem wrong to me. (There will probably always be things that seem wrong to you, too.)
We must train ourselves – slowly and with daily practice – to get comfortable with our discomfort. We must learn, over time, to be OK with things not being exactly how we think they should be. Otherwise, we’ll never be satisfied. We’ll always be spinning. We’ll never be able to take time off.
Spiritual-religious advice:
Stop finding faults. (And stop finding fault with yourself for finding faults.)
With love,
Rabbi Brian Doesn’t Understand
August 10, 2026
In the 18th century, in Hannipol, a small district of Khmelnytskyi Oblast, in present-day western Ukraine, there was a rabbi known as Reb Zusya. Zusya, a pious man, taught about humility and had a strange habit of referring to himself in the third person. Instead of saying, “I am hungry,” or “I don’t understand,” he would say, “Zusya is hungry,”
