Fluctuating Interests

If you have two dozen priorities you really have no priorities.  My list comes out daily.  Today's tasks number 69, taken largely as offshoots of my semiannual goals.  I cannot even come close to doing them all.  Very few will disappear for a week or more once done.  As a result, I am left deciding what among them I am going to do.  Artwork appears daily, never done.  Tidying kitchen and bedroom were once semi-annual home tasks, replaced by garden development.  New tasks emerge, some out of deadline such as medical license renewal, some out of interest like taking full advantage of my Curiosity Stream subscription.

I find myself less interested in FB.  Many of my FB friends have made themselves scarce or hardly ever interact with me verbally.  I find myself more interested in Twitter, though a little annoyed that one of my favorite posters decided I was not important enough a Jew to offer feedback on his comments.  Even there, I do not access anyone with hundreds of thousands of followers or anyone whose purpose is to provoke.  And pests who Tweet every few minutes around the clock get Unfollowed pretty quickly.

Writing has gotten more difficult, making me wonder how great a priority it was, though it is a stick to it task by which I measure myself.  I want to expand my circles, keeping me more focused on OLLI which meets regularly, and offering to be an Election District 8 Democratic Committeeman.  Interest in medicine and money languishes, though the essentials get done.  I am trying to learn photography skills via a Great Courses purchase, staying focused on the technicalities of using the camera devices and tinkering with the capabilities of my pretty decent point and shoot, but not yet immersed in the second half of the course on framing the different elements that the camera can capture.

I'm a little more inclined to write about me, either as furrydoc.blogspot.com in the morning or my Hakaras HaTov record in the evening.  Yet I cannot do the more sustained novel creation of my fictional template.  Gardening has gotten more serious, with indoor plantings done, container preparation paced appropriately, and as the weather warms a reasonable plan for an outdoors garden that will prove productive without overburdening me. 

My post-retirement life seems a little more focused on me, which has its favorable and unfavorable elements.  My interests tend to wax and wane, though my focus and ability to set priorities has never been better.

Prioritizing Synagogue Activities

My education committee chairman sent me a note asking if we could move the educational event that I run to the following week to avoid a conflict with a Game Night that another committee was putting together.  Logistically, it does not matter all that much which motzei shabbat the AKSE Academy takes place so it can be rescheduled.  The more important question in my mind is should it be rescheduled or should the components of the synagogue work in a more coherent way with priorities that are followed almost religiously?

Having been at AKSE for about thirteen years, I do not really think I could list ten priorities in order on a yellow legal pad.  Avoiding bankruptcy over the next few years would be first, I think.  At least pretty much all the officers say it is first but lukewarm willingness to do the things that avert the problem may provide a more realistic ranking to this particular imperative.  Having minyanim for each service ranks high until it comes time to actually fix the problem.  Making the congregation more attractive to a larger pool of women in the community ranks high but there is a phoniness about the decisions that impact upon this and how they are implemented.

No, there is Game Night and post-havdalah Machshava scheduled simultaneously and one must yield.  Which one?

rich the furrydoc