“i give you both A++++ on your examples but don’t fool yourselves. ask yourself are you looking forward to the weekly family restaurant date & each week count the days down towards it or is it a pleasure & mitzva to make your family happy?”
You remind me of an important concept I have learned and the path I have taken to apply it.
Basically there are two levels in Avodas Hashem :
1)kol maasecha yiyu lshem shomayim
2) bchol derachecha doeihu
What’s the difference? By the former, you do everything with Hahem as your final intent. With the latter, everything you do is itself serving Hashem.
Practically, take food as an example.
The first step “lshem shomayim” is that every time you really want to eat yummy food, you make sure that is enjoyment will end up lshem shomayim.
For example, when I used to want to eat Ice cream or anything else I enjoyed, I would use it as a reward for doing something good – usually learning something extra. Good food I would remind myself that I need the energy to serve Hashem. I can’t help enjoying it for itself, but I can channel that enjoyment to be lshem shomayim.
That’s why it’s a mitzva to make delicious food for Shabbos, so that the body too will associate shabbos with pleasure and look forward to it, not only the neshama.
The higher step is bchol derachecha doeihu. That everything Gashmius we do is itself to serve Hashem, just like shabbos food is itself a mitzvah.
So after enough of the former, one can reach the level where the body is used to associating every Gashmius pleasure with Avodas Hashem, and therefore only wants it in that framework – like only wanting to have cake together with the people you’re hosting – to make them comfortable. Only wanting to go to a restaurant to enhance sholom bayis etc.
And if the purpose isn’t there, the food itself isn’t pleasurable anymore.
The body is an amazing tool. We need to work with it to refine it but it’s capable of amazing things and can even elevate our neshama to new heights once we’ve trained it in.