Twenty years ago I was going through a breakup. My ex had met someone new and I was griping to my best friend about how great her life must be and how terrible mine was. He said, “Yeah, but you both still have to do laundry.”

While I don’t think about that relationship anymore, I do often think about the sentiment. No matter how great (or how bad) our year has been, we still have to do laundry–in other words, we still have to do the daily work of living. It’s our day-to-day existence that makes up probably 95% of the hours we have each year. This year, I spent three hours total standing on top of a glacier in Iceland–a highlight. On the flip side, I spent three hours on the side of the highway dealing with the aftermath of a car crash. But there’s 8,760 hours in a year, which means that even after that high and that low, I had 8,754 hours in day-to-day “doing laundry” hours left to spend. 

Since I figured that out, I’ve tried to make smaller choices that consistently make my life richer in those “doing laundry” hours. For me, and probably for you, that’s Oula. I spent at least 100 weekend hours dancing with my Oula pals, and probably at least 50 socializing with them after dancing. That consistent practice is a cornerstone for my life–giving me energy, stability and drive to get through the more tedious tasks and the big ups and downs. 

And doing laundry doesn’t always have to be the same. Every one of my Oula hours this year has been a bit different. There’s the hours I spent at Camp Oula, dancing with 40 new and old friends surrounded by Montana’s larches. There’s the quietly powerful and calming Oula One practice my wife, dogs, and I did all year with Jenna, Rosy, and Andrea’s virtual help. That includes the virtual hour we spent with Jenna the day we had to say goodbye to Lula, our beloved 16.5 year old mini Australian Shepherd. There’s the time a bunch of firefighters came through our Oula class due to an electrical fire behind our studio. There’s the hundreds of minutes we’ve spent learning new songs and dancing to old ones. While these aren’t the things I mention when someone asks me what my 2024 was like, they are the things that fill out my life and give it that extra layer of meaning.

In this edition of the newsletter, we’ve got an article that does a bit of a breakdown on how our Oula community spent our collective time. Check out “Oula by the Numbers–2024” to see if you see yourself in those stats. Read further, and you’ll also get a glimpse of how our CEO, Heather Renee Hughes, spends some of her days as she answers some get-to-know you questions. And read still further for some Oula updates and highlights from the Online Studio.

Wishing you all a happy New Year!

Jesse