I think God has something against me seeing Shakespeare in the Park.

It’s a free performance put on by NY Public Theater in the Delacourte Theater in Central Park. The only catch: you have to wait on line for tickets, which are handed out at 1 p.m. before the night’s 8 p.m. performance.

I’ve been on the line three or four times with equal success each time: failure.

I learned the hard way that 9 a.m. is just too late to show up. On the last Sunday of any showing, even 7 a.m. is too late. Too many times I’ve walked off without a ticket after spending hours waiting in the sun and shade. Once, me and B even waited on the standby line, in case anyone returned tickets. We spent, literally, the entire Sunday waiting on line. We got standby tickets. Then it started to rain. That was one of the most crushing disappointments in my life.

I had grand plans for this final showing of Hamlet. I was going to bring a tent at 5 a.m., plenty of entertainment, and varied friends and make a fun day of it. And best of all, I was definitely going to get a ticket. But the weatherman swore it would be rainy all day, and I was afraid of having a miserable wait on line only to be rained out again.

So I called it off.

Well guess who was irritated when it was sunny and beautiful all morning until 2 p.m.? 1 p.m. is when they hand out the tickets. Then there was a brief thunderstorm.

“Good,” I said grumpily, “I hope it rains straight through 8 p.m. and beyond.” I didn’t want to have to live with the fact that I’d missed my chance once again.

As I sat and watched the rainstorm, I realized how childish and petulant I sounded. My high rate of failure had something almost supernatural about it. Maybe I was being prevented from attending the show by the Almighty. Why? No idea. Granted, I swore off theater at some point during middle school, but I always assumed it left exception for things like IMAX and public theater.

I sat on the moist grass under a tree and watched the rain pour down, splattering the concrete and beating down the leaves. So I would miss Shakespeare in the Park. Yet again. But all those people who had spent the morning waiting – their wait shouldn’t have been in vain. Let them enjoy the show that, for some reason, I couldn’t.

There’s a certain moral lesson to all the time and effort I’ve devoted to seeing a Shakespeare in the Park show. I devote tons of time and effort to all sorts of things, some of them bizarrely pointless, except that they give me the pleasure of a difficult task completed. SitP is one of them. I want to see the show now not just because I want to see Hamlet performed live, but because I’ve failed so many times that it’s become a difficulty I feel compelled to surmount, like Hilary’s Everest.

I’ve been about as successful as Hilary, but unlike him, I have the chance to retry.

But maybe I shouldn’t. I mean, there are so many other, more worthy things to spend my time on. Every time I find myself doing something like this I think, “I really need to get involved in a cause.” I’ve got the energy and fire, why can’t I devote it to something worthwhile? The dolls, I think, were a worthy cause. Simchas kallah. That was time and effort well spent. But The New Yorker project? Shakespeare in the Park? Rollerblading the entire Riverside Park? Teaching myself the physics SAT? Even BadforShidduchim? What’s the point? Do these things accomplish anything beyond boosting my confidence? Shouldn’t I do something that also benefits others?

…and yet, I don’t know what. I’m not comfortable visiting strangers in hospitals, and I think that’s a dubious chesed at any rate. I don’t deal well with disabled children just because I can’t do the whole fakey excited thing. I suspect I’m a bit too much of a snob for kiruv, but mostly, the responsibility frightens me. And I don’t even know how to go about doing something like baking for a bikur cholim or whatever other little non-interpersonal stuff there is to do.

I have this lurking idea that one thing I won’t mind doing and will do well is make money. I don’t mind giving tzedakah generously because my needs are few and I really do feel guilty about the ease and luxury of my life. But it’ll be a few years yet before I start earning real money, and there’s a chance I’ll end up married with a family first, which would divert my income. I really feel like I ought to be doing something more with my life, but I don’t know what. Sometimes I feel like a serious waste of space. Everything I do seems to be in pursuit of personal satisfaction.

What – what- what can I do for others?