Avodas Hashem is like a cup of coffee. When you make the coffee it is piping hot. You take the first gulp and DEEEELLLLICCCIOUUSSSSSS!!! The coffee sits there and you go about your business - the newspaper, going through emails, learning your mishna yomis [li-havdil!!], then you take the second gulp. Good but not as good. The coffee cooled off a bit. Then a little bit later the third gulp. Even cooler. Not so geshmak. By the time you get to the bottom, it is already lukewarm [as opposed to "Luke" Skywalker].
Same with Avodas Hashem. We have moments - like Yom Kippur, or periods, like a year of study in Israel, when we are on fire. But then we cool off. The more time passes - the more we cool.
What is the solution??
KEEP THE FIRE BURNING!!!!
HOW?
One way:
Learn mussar and/or chassidus daily.
There were GEDOLEI YISRAEL who said that one day w/o mussar and they already felt themselves going SLIGHTLY OTD [i.e. a cooling of their spiritual passions].
