Parashat Re'eh begins with Moshe Rabbenu making the following pronouncement to Beneh Yisrael : ראה אנוכי נותן לפניכם היום ברכה וקללה. See that I am placing before you today a blessing and a curse. The commentaries explain that every day, Hashem gives us opportunities. Everything He gives us is another opportunity to serve Him, to do something meaningful, and to attain greatness. Everything our community has been blessed with – its shuls, its schools, its programs, its close-knit nature – is an opportunity for us to do great things. Everything we have in our personal lives, too, is an opportunity. And yes, even the challenges that we face are an opportunity for us to grow by overcoming them and persevering. It is up to us to decide whether to turn everything we have into a ברכה or a קללה – a blessing, or, Heaven forbid, the opposite. Moshe here emphasizes that this opportunity is given to us היום , today, right now. Too often, we think to ourselves that only when such-and-such happens, when such-and-such problem is solved, or when something changes, we will be able to achieve and do what we know what we need to do. Moshe tells us that there is no reason to wait. אנוכי נותן לפניכם היום . Today, right now, whatever is going on in our lives, we have the opportunity to choose ברכה , to take all that Hashem has given us, and turn it into a blessing. I was once talking to friend toward the end of the summer, and I asked him how his summer was going. He lamented that he had been eating too much during the summer, and gained weight. "So what are you going to do about it?" I asked. "I'll go on a diet after the summer," he replied. This is the mistake that so many of us make. We decide to wait. We don't realize that already היום , right now, we can bring ברכה into our lives. We don't have to wait for the end of the summer, or for anything else to happen, to enjoy and take advantage of Hashem's blessings. Already today, no matter what is happening in our lives, we have precious opportunities to grow and achieve. There is also something else worth noting in this opening pasuk . The pasuk begins in the singular form, addressing the individual – ראה – but then immediately transitions to the plural form – לפניכם . The explanation might be that in order to find the opportunity for ברכה today, we need to look as individuals, at our own lives, without being distracted by other people's lives. ראה – we have to look by ourselves, individually. One of the greatest obstacles to capitalizing on our opportunities is a phenomenon known today as "FOMO" – the "fear of missing out." Once upon a time, this was something that teenage girls suffered from. But now, it seems, even adults experience FOMO. We see lots of cars parked near a home, and we right away realize that there's some event going on which we didn't know about – and we feel we're missing something. We hear of things happening, and we right away think we need to join. We're always looking around to see what other people are doing, thinking that we should probably be doing that, too. If we are going to live our best lives, then we need to focus on living *OUR* best lives. We have to be able to block out the noise, to ignore what other people are doing, and to focus our attention on the opportunities that Hashem has given us to shine and excel. We don't have to be doing what others are doing – we need to be doing the things that will make our lives the most meaningful, the most fulfilling, and the most accomplished that they can be.