We've all been there at one point or another in our lives. Whether it's with work, our personal lives, hobbies, interests, etc., there comes a time when our everyday interests are bound to suffer from the mundane routine that is everyday life. Some people wake up everyday, fresh and ready to go, anxious and ready to find out what surprises lie ahead in the upcoming day. They are usually the ones who have the big, peppy smiles on their faces on Monday mornings. The kinds of the people whose enthusiasm for life you wish you had, but make you wonder what kind of drugs they are on that could make them so happy.
Then there are the other people. The ones who wake up reluctant to get out of bed, and leave the house uninspired about what awaits them in the coming day. They are the ones who you see on Monday mornings always complaining about something and already counting down the hours till the coming weekend. The ones who make you miserable just looking at. The kinds of people who you know either have a t-shirt or bumper sticker with the old addage, "Same sh-t , different day...," and wonder what kinds of drugs you can get them to make them just a little but more pleasant to be around.
I, myself, am probably somewhere in between the two. I feel lucky to have everything that I do. With a good job, an a cappella group, family, friends, and personal responsibilties, including Moishe House, you would think that I have plenty of things to keep everyday life interesting. While mostly true though, everyone is bound to slip into a period of uninspiredness, where no matter what you have on your plate, life just falls into a routine, and begins to seem boring. When this happens it usually takes something out of the ordinary to jump start you and get you looking forward again to everything that life has to offer.
For me, this jump start was the recent Moishe House East Coast Retreat a few weeks ago in Washington D.C. For at least one day, I had the opportunity to meet people, both alike and unlike me in various ways, but all with one thing in common, Moishe House. At the retreat, we had the opporunity to sit and share all the different things we do in our various communities and meet people who share a lot of the same values and lifestyles. In the few short hours we all had together, we discussed all the different aspects of what it takes to run a successful Moishe House; the events we do, the people we bring in, and the ways in which we go about it. What I learned was that there are other Moisheniks out there who suffer from a similar problem as myself; the fact that life sometimes just becomes too routine. With respect to Moishe House, this means having the same or similar kinds of events every month and drawing the same people. For someone like myself who easily becomes bored with routine, this can make you fall into the dangerous trap of losing interest in whatever you are doing.
Through the retreat, I became inspired again by seeing what other houses do and how they go about it. Simply by talking and listening to the people there, I've come away with a renewed sense of excitement about Moishe House; a drive to try new things and to get new and different people, who- or whatever they may be. This is not to say of course that I've become bored with Moishe House. But just like any musician or cook might tell you, as someone who provides a certain service to a community, you can't just keep playing the same songs or serving the same dishes to please people. Eventually you have got to mix it up a little; to keep other people interested, but more importantly, yourself. After all, you're evetually going to want to change your t-shirt, or read a different bumper sticker.
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