Parsing Energy
Energy Economics
Assuming one has just so much energy to expend, how do we “decide” when and how to expend it?
“Decide” is in quotes because I think matters beyond our choice, and usually, awareness, largely determine how our day unfolds.
I have little doubt that my energies find different avenues than they did a generation ago.
Would I have stopped 25 years ago, on my walk down to the Post Office, to admire that flower, linger long enough to photograph it? Unlikely. Too many more “urgent” matters to tend to.
I take at least a few laps through the day’s news, choosing from among the online headlines which things I want, or ought, to pay attention to. There was a time when I would have dug into many more of them.
We’re sorting through options for downsizing chores and responsibilities as age diminishes our strengths. I am preoccupied with prospects of major changes – geographical, practical – that will require me to disrupt the routine I try so hard to have define my day. I’m told that men have a harder time with big life changes than women do. I can attest to that. Lacey, five years younger and actuarily likely to outlive me by many years, is eager to downsize before she has to deal with major change I won’t be around to share with her.
When the subject came up yesterday my response was to go out and mow. Likely to prove, at least to myself, there’s no need to rush into those changes. I’m still vigorous, have miles to go before I sleep. Never mind that I needed to sit down (and fell asleep) when I came in from mowing.
Embracing the reality of energy’s limits is not unwelcome. I am much kinder to myself than I was as a younger person, less critical of what I haven’t the energy for.
It means learning to love simply being here, an unfathomable gift, more than measuring my worth by how big a dent I have made or will make. I will do what little I can to be kind to others who regret how little we actually control.
Maybe I can be equally kind to myself about that? Take my cues from dear Zinnia.
