[How To Survive Series] Switching To Green Sustainable "Personal" Energy
We have to make this switch or life and humanity as we all know it will cease to exist!
We have 12 years to make this switch otherwise the world as you know it will end!!!
Be honest, you were about to unsubscribe from me after reading that one weren’t you. If not then I have to congratulate you on being a real one. All jokes aside, I have to honestly say that I am thankful to have at the very least garnered enough recognition that people can understand a very tongue-in cheek reference and not be triggered into polar political attack mode.
That being said, this article will not be political at all. Still, it does harken to a very interesting concept which, while may be questionable when preached by the scribes and scholars that guard the gates of the new-age secular NWO cathedral, fit perfectly in context when looking at our lives.
Energy.
A lot of people tend to be very confused when it comes to the subject of energy because really it is rooted in not only the esoteric, not only the geopolitcal, not only the physiologic, but also the fiscal worlds. Energy is ubiquitous. Everything requires energy, everything is comprised of energy. Energy is life.
So what happens when you run out of energy? The results may surprise you. Actually, they shouldn’t.
That being said, energy is simply a term that we use to assign value to the cost of an action. Everything has a cost. Moving, whether its one inch or one mile, will cost you some energy. That energy is derived chemically and output mechanically so there is some loss of energy in the way of thermal energy loss as you convert the energy.
Chemical conversions are one thing, but have we ever thought about the mental energy that we use and output? This is something that largely goes overlooked and believe it or not, mental energy drain can lead to stress, which can have some deep physiological consequences.
A lot of people don’t understand the concept of how our feelings, emotional state, and levels of exhaustion can create a physical cataclysm that can have brutal after effects but its true and it happens to most of us whether we recognize it or not.
If you take a look at the above image, you can see a litany of effects that come with prolonged exposure to stress which comes in part as a result of the secretion of cortisol and other stress hormones and neurotransmitters.
This stress is due to our energy expenditures that leave us worn out and often in a state of breakdown. If your energy is being placed in various stressful sources or areas which drain far more energy than necessary (i.e. People, Programs, TV, etc.) then you’re going to be picking from the delightful menu above of side effects and maladies.
The main issue that we as a people face is that almost our entire daily existence is built upon investing inordinate amounts of energy in these energy sinks1. (See the bottom of the page for a proper definition.) Think about it for a second, do you have:
A favorite show or publication that you watch constantly which brings you no sort of tangible or developmental benefit.
A game that usually takes up a ridiculous amount of time either via a grind, intense amounts of practice, or mental attention without any sort of financial or professional avenue for growth.
A personal relationship with a non-familial individual that requires you to leverage way more time in terms of activities or communication just to keep the lines of communication open but with no positive return of value or a one-sided flow of value from you.
A hobby that usually creates negative bodily effects requiring extensive downtime or inducing more stress with no future payoff of practical experience.
If you answered yes to any of these, then congratulations, you are the proud owner of an energy sink. Now, I’m not saying that you need to have a “Negative Energy Footprint” (to borrow climatology terms since I know you guys LOVE climatologists.) but you do need to get a little bit more green and efficient with your energy usage.
Activity + Immense Time Investment - Benefit = Stress Produced
Stress Produced = Harmful Emissions
Too many of these harmful emissions will kill their environment. I.E. You. You’re the environment.
So now that I’ve given you the background, the problem, and the cause of the problem, lets get to the solution. How do we switch to a more “green” and “sustainable” form of personal energy usage?
Have no fear, for I have a very good solution to this which can be accomplished in about a week and a half:
Create an activity tracker. This will be used to monitor what activities that you do and how long you spend daily. Don’t estimate, track your activities in real time. You’ll be surprised how much excess time you expend beyond what you think you do.
Set up a column for each:
Activity
Time Spent (Start Time) (Finish Time)
Activity Type
Purpose of Activity
At the end of this week, its time to conduct: THE ENERGY AUDIT. Put your accountant’s hat on and tally up the following:
Amount of time spent on each activity type per day.
Amount of time per week on each activity type per week.
Amount of time per week spent on each specific purpose of activity.
There are other ways that you can dissect this simple data, but for the purpose of figuring out your energy sinks, you can stick to these.
Taking the “Purpose of Activity” column, you should now create a table column for each purpose (it can be however specific or vague as you’d like, though it would be better to make these specific.) Under the table list out the benefits of investing in that purpose. Chances are these will be things like but are not limited to:
Stress relief
Financial Gain
Physical Training
Relationship Building
etc.
Rank the benefits that you get under an activity if you want to get even more granular when the time to trim redundant activities based on conferred benefits comes.
From this point on, rank these purposes based on their amount of importance relative to your life’s goals and the corresponding benefits the activity confers. THIS will be where you can figure out which activities you should begin to reduce and increase your time investment in.
If you have checked the list and realize that you’re missing an activity that has a purpose that may line up with your long term goals, consider knocking an item off of your activity list with a redundant purpose. Its your choice how you choose to spec your time usages and goals, but I usually recommend limiting your leisure and “fun” type benefit activities to 5 - 8 hours a week.
Assuming that you do this correctly, you’ll be well on your way to making the proper strides to becoming more energy efficient. Yes this may seem like a “No Brainer” to some of you, but I guarantee that once you do this, you’ll realize just how much time you aimlessly waste browsing Twitter or Instagram (if you’re the sadomasochistic sort.)
Either way, with your help, we can hopefully be one step closer to a better more sustainable personal future!
An energy sink would be considered any sort of activity, object, or personal relationship that takes the input of a disproportionate amount of energy relative to the value of the output.