What Are You Wasting?

June 16, 2015 / Ralph Simone / Get Emergent

SUSTAINABILITY

Recently I have had several opportunities to be introduced to organizations and individuals who are involved with this concept of sustainability and renewable energy – the green movement. I was intrigued by the concept and how we could apply it to the environment and my interest immediately became focused closer to home. More specifically, how we could individually apply the concept of renewal to our physical, spiritual, mental, and emotional energy.

Economy of effort is a concept that has intrigued me for quite some time. And while I don’t consider myself lazy, I have become quite suspicious about the need to take massive action over and over again to get what I want. It just seemed to me that there is not enough time in a day, week, or lifetime to take all the action you need to take to achieve everything you want. Now this doesn’t mean that you take no action; however, you want your action to be inspired by a definite purpose.

I actually think that I really understood the concept of least effort when I was younger. I remember enjoying school over the years and never really feeling the pressure, or the need for that matter, to study and work hard. In fact, I went so far as to put no effort into the courses that were of little or no interest to me. Things that were not aligned with who I truly was or what I was truly interested in were of little consequence to me. Now this doesn’t mean that the social mirror pressure wasn’t acting on me to “perform and work hard.” I was a periodic challenge for my parents throughout my primary and secondary schooling years. If it didn’t make sense or inspire me in some way, it didn’t get much of my attention or energy. Consequently, I received some extra attention and energy from both my teachers and parents. And in retrospect, I find that most of their effort was wasted, so to speak, in failed attempts to put a square peg into a round hole.

When you think about it “how much energy do we waste daily by worrying about things that have already happened or that could possibly happen?” How much time and effort is expended anticipating how someone might react, over-analyzing how we should proceed, concerned that it won’t work out – only to find that we missed our opportunity, the real true waste. Instead, we need to focus our energy on what we want, those things that are truly aligned with who we truly are.

How about this belief that some people have about the need to do most things themselves and that perhaps it is not worthwhile unless they have to struggle a bit. That combination of thought and action can become potentially debilitating over time. We need to learn whether what we are doing or thinking is sustainable or not, based on how we feel in that moment. If we are feeling good our energy will naturally align with our true purpose. Consequently, our emphasis needs to be on how we are feeling from moment to moment and over time.

What are you doing on a regular (daily/weekly) basis to renew your energy? Where is your energy wasted, where does it tend to leak?