All About Energy

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People often ask, “Where do you get the energy to do all the stuff that you do?” And here’s my answer:

I don’t!

I’m so behind on stuff I have to do, let alone stuff I like to do. Funny thing about the day job–it gets in the way of family time, let alone hobbies and other interests.

As such, the only time available to do stuff that I like to do as a hobby is either really early in the morning or really late at night. Usually late at night, usually only for a few hours, and usually not every night, given practical realities such as: the need for sleep, and a desire to spend time with my wife and kids.

So we’ve narrowed this down to “a few hours of free time a few late nights a week.” How does one then find the energy to do this? I have two bits of advice:

Look forward to it. You get excited to do anything that you enjoy. Looking forward to something–be it game night with the family, time with my wife, exercising, writing, reading–plants the seed at the beginning of the day that, when all of the work stuff is done, it’s time to engage in some recreation that you actually enjoy. It could be a movie. It could be a date. It could be, I don’t know, whittling. Working on a jigsaw puzzle. Whatever. The thing is is that the daily grind becomes the thing you have to do, and when that’s done, you have something you want to do to look forward to.


Ask yourself a question: Does what I’m doing get me closer to achieving my goal? Does sleeping an extra hour or two when I actually have some free time advance me to where I want to be? Does vegging out in front of the TV? Now, you might have planned some TV time with the wife or husband or kids or whomever, but let’s say everyone else is asleep and you have a choice of, say, watching YouTube videos endlessly or working on your song or novel or model or side-business or whatever . . . which path is going to make you feel good about yourself going to bed, and then when you wake up the next morning? 

I actually don’t have tons of energy. I’d much rather stuff my face with ice cream and then sleep 10-12 hours a night. But if I do that, I’ll be pushing myself away from my ideal end-state rather than towards it. And that’s not what I’m here on Earth for.

I wasn’t made to while away my time until I die. I’m here to praise God, enjoy my family, and leave a legacy for them and for the world. That might sound grandiose, but it’s really how all civilizations operate and need to think. We each do our part, from the teacher and artist to the ditch digger and the astronaut. Time is short, and the best time to start anything is now.

I write my novels under this paradigm. I might not be pumping out 15 per year (yet), but I do what I can. You’ll love them–The Last Ancestor is top-rated science-fiction. Check it out yourself!