It's all about making the most of your time.
Sefirat HaOmer is about not wasting time; pay attention to the day that just passed and take a minute to think whether you used it properly:
At least when the sun is about to go down, remind yourself:
“Did I count today? What did I accomplish today? Is there anything to count?”
Is it just another day passing away, maybe wasted away, that won’t ever come back?
The Waste of Obsessive Thoughts
The wealth of life is only for a few moments.
Relatively, life is only a fleeting pause in eternity.
And therefore is it any wonder that we pray to Hakodosh Boruch Hu, we beseech Him, we beg Him: limnos yameinu kein hoda – teach us how to count our days so that we shouldn’t spend our days being bemused!
You know how many people spend their yomim with their minds preoccupied with nothing at all.
Here’s a man who’s walking around thinking about ways and means of fighting with his boss; he’s spending his days thinking of ways and means how to get even with him.
There are people going around, and they’re tense and they’re worried, thinking that they’re being persecuted by their neighbors and their mothers-in-law. They spend time bemused about the injustice that is being done to them.
And their lives are being wasted away by silly and foolish imaginations. Not lunatics! I’m talking about sane people.
And what about the people who waste their lives pursuing after imaginary wealth, instead of the true wealth of yiras Hashem; people who waste their lives pursuing imaginary pleasures?!
Change Your Day from Success to Failure with 1 Minute
And the ladies and the girls have a glorious opportunity as well.
While they’re stirring the pot in the kitchen, while they’re sweeping the floor or sewing, whatever they’re doing, they’re thinking of Hakadosh Boruch Hu. A glorious career!
And I’m serious about that; it’s a glorious career!
Instead of taking these minutes, these diamonds, and throwing them away, they’re cashing them in. They’re the most precious achievement. You counted a few seconds while washing the dishes?! You thought about Hashem while standing in the shop?!
You’re a great person already!
Try it; try thinking for one minute that you’re standing in front of Hashem.
Even one minute of thinking during the day is so precious that you can already count that day as a success!
Even if you don’t think all the time, even though you waste a lot of time, if you’ll spend one minute of thinking, it’s a tremendous achievement.
You’re one out of ten thousand, you’re a head taller than everyone just because of that one minute.
The Fastest & Simplest Way to Uplift the Mundane
You know, a woman can bake muffins, she can cook chicken, and she can become heroic in the kitchen.
Imagine a housewife standing in her kitchen as she is kneading the dough, she is thinking, “My hands are the hands of Hakadosh Baruch Hu; like it says,...“Hakodosh Boruch Hu in His endless kindness gives food to all the living” (Tehillim 136:25).
How does He give bread? Does He stretch his hands from the sky and hand us something?
The pshat is that it’s through the woman who’s making the challah. So if you’re baking challah or if you’re selling bread over the counter, it’s a glorious opportunity for the reishis chochma, the most valuable of all wisdom.
All the bakers should be here tonight because otherwise their lives are being wasted. Think what a baker could accomplish every time he hands a loaf across the counter, and he’s thinking: ...“I’m giving bread to all the living and I’m doing it as a shaliach of Hakadosh Baruch Hu.”
The fact that he’s being paid for it, that doesn’t detract from the greatness of this accomplishment.
And so, at the end of the day, the mother is standing in the kitchen, or maybe the baker or the grocer is standing behind the counter, and they look through the window and see the sun is going down; they should remember why Hashem made that great ball of fire:
“Don’t miss even one day!”
You remind yourself that once on Shabbos, you had prayed...“Teach me to count my days properly,” and so, in the last moment, as you put the muffins into the oven or as you hand the last loaf of bread across the counter to the boy who went on an errand for his mother, you do it with the thought that “My hands are the hands of Hakadosh Baruch Hu Who gives bread to all the living.”
That's pretty encouraging.