12:29PM bs"D

I suppose it is time to stop complaining, and time to start documenting my journey. I'll kick things off with the present moment. After all, where better to start than that?

This goes out to all those who feel lost out there. Directionless, frustrated, stuck souls who would do anything in the world to begin the process of unfolding their uniqueness and spilling it out into the world if they could only have some security that this process would also help to pay their bills.

I decided a long time ago that I didn't want to sell my soul for financial security. If I had to trace it back, I wouldn't be able to truthfully say that that decision was made before college. I simply wasn't mature enough to understand what it meant that I wanted to follow my dreams.

"Following my dreams" only became understandable to me sometime during my third job after college, when I was working in a mega bank in New York City called Morgan Stanley. I majored in finance in college for reasons that I now regret. I wanted to secure for myself financial security. This to me was the way to break into an industry where I could be guaranteed to make six figures sometime within the first 3-6 years of work. And I was right about that. But what I was dead wrong about was that this financial security would never make me happy or content. It actually made me depressed.

Sometime during my stint at Morgan I began becoming disillusioned with my career path - finance in New York City. My soul was hurting. I was in a corporate system that encouraged slavery and dog fighting for promotions and better pay, the process of which demanded an ever greater sacrifice of my emotionally healthy and creative independent self to the rat race culture. Sure, I would have been on the higher spectrum of US salaries, but my self effacement in the name of security would be the same as anybody. It was a miserably predictable trajectory. I had to give it up. I was also fed up with my social life in NYC and the types of girls I was meeting. I wanted to meet someone I could marry.

I decided to fulfill my decade long dream of moving to Israel. My soul told me it belongs here and that it needed to go back. The Aliyah benefits coupled with the zero-enthusiasm I had about my options in New York or Philly made it the best move I could think of. I was still a bit unsure though, so I consulted with a powerful Rav in Brooklyn about it. He told me its a good move. If I have the chance to move to Israel, he said, take it.

So here I am, 6 months after my Aliyah date, writing my first blog post. I've had two and a half jobs. Most incredibly and awesome, I'm engaged to the girl of my dreams. She is an incredible gift from above. We met in Tsfat, and our wedding is scheduled for Lag B'omer. This I am so happy about.

But one thing still pulls me down and haunts me. What am I going to do for work? What is my life's work? What should I do here? I am completely at a loss as I write this to you, and I feel paralyzed.

I have no idea what to do. I currently have no income. But worst of all, I feel I have no idea what I want to do, and I can't seem to come up with a direction to choose to head into. I've asked myself, for years, what it is that I can't get past. I still don't know what's wrong with me.

But one thing I know is this; I cannot say that I have any regrets. I've done as best as I can with the cards that have been dealt me. I turned down a high paying job for emotional and spiritual freedom. I took the risk of moving away from everything I knew and felt comfortable with in New York. I came to Tsfat with no friends and no job. Now I'm engaged to my soul mate who is just an incredible light in my life. And now I'm beginning to come to grips with the fact that I've never known how exactly to spend my time. I'm trying to trust in Hashem.

I pray that He guides me, I pray that He sees me. A 27 year old, intelligent good looking Jew who is eager to serve Him. I hope he gives me some missions to carry out. After all, I've only got this one window of time to do what I've come here to do. What is it? What will be my tikkun? Time will tell.

Love Adam