Time Vs. Energy
“Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”
-Carl Sandburg
That was my quote for my high school senior yearbook picture. I’ve been mindful of the importance of our time since high school, but I haven’t always been the best about protecting my time. Despite the wisdom of Sandburg’s quote, I am guilty of giving away and even wasting a lot of time in my life.
I don’t think I would go back and change the time that I “gave away”—I believe the net benefit of the time given away ended up being positive and in my favor in the long run. The time wasted, well sure I’d love to reclaim some of that time but we know that’s not positive, so the best I can do is learn from those experiences to limit future waste.
SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE
Recently I shifted my perspective in how I view my time.
Instead of thinking about my day in the hours and minutes I have to spend each 24 hours, I started to think about the energy I have to use each day. That shift in perspective, viewing each day in terms of the energy I have to use instead of the time I have on the clock, has led me to be much more protective of my energy/time.
I’ve spent time reflecting on why energy is more impactful than time to me, and the conclusion I have arrived at is I can “feel” energy, while time expires and I don’t physically notice it. I see the clock move, the sun rotate through the sky, and darkness arrive—but I don’t “feel” time passing.
Energy on the other hand I can feel decrease as the day goes on.
I know, because I am tired later in the day, that the decisions throughout the day on how I spend my energy will impact what I’m able to do later in the day. An exercise I often find myself doing throughout the day is asking myself, “Is there something else I’d rather use this energy on today?” Or, sometimes I’ll ask, “Does spending this energy now lead to a boost in energy later in the day (i.e. working out)?”
Taking a more mindful approach to spending my energy/time has led me to becoming more productive, efficient, rested, happy, spending my days doing more of what excites me, and minimizing regret.
THE STOICS
I’ve long been a fan of the Stoics and my favorite Stoic, Seneca, had a lot to say about time—he even wrote a book called On The Shortness Of Life.
“It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. Life is long enough, and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us for the highest achievements if it were all well invested. But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity, we are forced at last by death’s final constraint to realize that it has passed away before we knew it was passing. So it is: we are not given a short life but we make it short, and we are not ill-supplied but wasteful of it… Life is long if you know how to use it.”
-Seneca
My goal is to make sure when I am confronted by “death’s final constraint” I look back on my life with a feeling that my time was plentiful—I maximized the time I had and did not waste it.
The subtle change of taking inventory of my energy instead of time has me heading in the right direction—I’m grateful that thought popped in my head and that I listened to it. I encourage you to take inventory of your daily energy—not just how you physically spend your energy, but also mentally and emotionally, and begin to protect it.
Your future Self will appreciate it.
“People are frugal in guarding their personal property; but as soon as it comes to squandering time they are most wasteful of the one thing in which it is right to be stingy.”
-Seneca
See you tomorrow and keep pursuing,
JC
