Hoarding energy is akin to damming up a stream to the point where it can no longer renew itself. It becomes stagnant and will eventually cease to support life. Think of the different areas of your life and envision what results when the energy is hoarded.
For instance, if you conserve your physical energy by sitting on the couch and watching television instead of exercising, does your supply of physical energy increase or decrease as time passes? If you hoard your social energy, are you likely to have friends when you need them?
Energy, in whatever form it takes, requires proper management. The flow of the stream produces energy as it runs freely along its course. Even more energy can be produced if the flow is conscientiously managed. The judicious use of a dam creates a reservoir which can sustain life. Wildlife quench their thirst, aquatic creatures have a home, and crops are irrigated from these reservoirs. In addition, the water running through the dam system creates power that can be harnessed to provide electricity for untold numbers of people.
If the water is used up too carelessly, many forms of life suffer needlessly. It is the same with all your forms of energy. Learn to manage it wisely instead of hoarding it like a miser or wasting it like a fool. Find the middle ground.
Successful people, for instance, evaluate everything by its total cost, not just the initial financial outlay. They look at important resources such as time, energy, interpersonal goodwill, personal and professional dignity, and inner peace. They realize how costly freebies can be when seen in their entirety. As the Japanese proverb states, “Nothing is more costly than something given free of charge.”
As a psychologist, I encounter this attitude on a fairly regular basis. For some reason, this wanting something for nothing seems particularly rampant in the field of mental health. I hear people from many walks of life judging mental health professionals for “making a living off of other people’s pain.” But the reality is that most fields are populated by people who have identified a problem, an area of potential pain, and have provided a product or service as a solution that people can purchase if they so choose. Think of lawyers, mechanics, restaurateurs, physicians, plumbers, telephone and television providers, hair dressers, and so forth. All provide a service or product to alleviate someone else’s pain or provide a solution to their problem.
People who have tapped into their own inner wisdom realize that exchanging the energy of money for the energy of helpful and necessary services and products is actually very good energy management. They are appropriately wary of the free lunch. The infamous con man of US history, The Yellow Kid, claimed that people’s greedy desire to get something of value for cheap or free costs them dearly in the long run. So, go ahead and learn how to become an excellent manager of your own energy systems.