Sometimes, the motivation to grown spiritually comes from our respect for someone else, a Tzaddik, a Talmid Chacham… But this is a mistake.

We don’t need to look elsewhere to find the means to improve ourselves. Everything we need is right at home.  Every day, from morning to night, we encounter challenges that are meant just for us.  If we can accept them with faith and humility, and struggle with them as best we can, we will be blessed in this world and the next.  We don’t have to look for things about which we were not commanded, only to accept with love that which is already ours, for in this lies the path of perfection that God has intended for our souls. ~ R’ Yaakov Meir Shechter