Selective Languishing

Since Languishing became an identifiable entity with its fifteen minutes in the spotlight, my identification  with its features have been obvious.  I wonder, though, whether the scholars that pursue this will need to refine how they describe it, what its underpinnings might be, and how they potential reversals might be circumstance dependent.

I think languishing might be compartmentalized.  Our congregational President offered us a chance to contribute to his upcoming performance discussion with our Rabbi.  He does not seem to take performance enhancing drugs, but when you look at the elements of contractual job description, all boxes would get checked.  Certificate of Successful Fulfillment of the contract can be signed without hesitation, yet when I am in their sanctuary I languish Jewishly and I taught myself to minimize being at other activities to avoid a similar ennui.  Other things that I do such as treadmill progress or expressing myself in various forums or making a special dinner in my kitchen defend against this feeling.  I don't really have to subject myself to synagogue.  Others don't really have the option of avoidance when the impediments of work or family obligations or financial anxieties overtake those more satisfying elements of their lives.  Languishing then becomes more global than selective, more like the malignancy that started local but eventually metastasizes everywhere.

For now, if I experience languishing at all, which I once clearly did, it remains in selective compartments not totally avoidable. My challenge may be to provide a moat between the things that energize me and those that drag me.  I probably can.