There are nights when it all catches fire — when an idea opens and you would learn until dawn. Treasure those nights. But do not build on them.
Fire is weather. It comes, it goes, it is not yours to summon. What is yours is the dull, unglamorous Tuesday when nothing is burning and you sit anyway.
Fire is a gift you receive. Consistency is a gift you build.
The thing that compounds
A small amount, kept faithfully, outperforms a large amount kept occasionally — not because it feels better, but because it compounds. The tradition has long placed a high value on regularity in Torah, on the fixing of times that do not bend to your mood.
This is hard to believe while you are inside an inspired night. It becomes obvious only in retrospect, when you look back and find that the quiet, repeated hour built something the bonfires never did.
Intensity impresses you. Consistency changes you. They are not the same project.
Setting the floor, not the ceiling
So set a floor you can keep on your worst week — not a ceiling you reach on your best. The floor is the real number. Everything above it is a gift.
What that floor should be — how it fits your duties, your stage, your health — is not a decision to make alone in front of a glowing rectangle. It is a decision to make with a teacher who can see your whole life and help you choose a rhythm that will still be standing a year from now.