Should I try to get rid of my worst traits, like anger or obsessiveness?

Rabbi Landau teaches that “your worst quality is your best quality.” You cannot destroy your nature, he says; you can only confuse it. “You're not broken, you are misdirected,” and there is a catastrophic difference.

Look at the traits people fight hardest. “The angry man is not broken. He's a warrior without a war. The obsessive is not sick. He's a genius without a target.” And the rebel is not damaged; he is a leader who hasn't had a chance to find his people yet. “It's the same energy, wrong address.”

That is why, he says, “most self-improvement is self-destruction with better marketing.” Stop apologizing for your intensity and start interrogating it. The question is never “What is wrong with me?” The question is always “Where does this belong?”

King Solomon says in Koheles, “God made man upright, but they sought many schemes.” The nature is not the problem; the direction is. “Don't amputate your nature, deploy it.”

Going deeper: Rabbi Landau's teaching, level by level

Surface claim

Your hardest trait carries your greatest strength.

Fear, vulnerability, or tension

A person who keeps failing to break a trait starts to think he is defective. In A Soul at Peace, Rabbi Landau writes that this despair comes from not understanding how the soul works.

Underlying need or longing

The longing is to stop being at war with yourself. Rabbi Landau's answer is that you were made upright, and the powers you were given came to serve you.

What may be behind it

The “many schemes” are the wrong directions, the times we aim our strength at the wrong place.

Deepest human truth

Don't amputate your nature. Deploy it.

More questions from this teaching

• What should I ask myself instead of asking what is wrong with me?