By Dina Aldabbagh

Everything is an exchange of energy. When you get really good at living life, it is at that same time that you stop pouring into things that don’t pour back into you. It’s a level of sovereignty that sets you apart. It’s your competitive edge.

If there’s one single question that I want you to internalize as you meet every situation you encounter it’s this: “Is it worth it?” What that’s really asking is, “Is me giving energy to this also giving me a proportionate amount back?”

Think of a project you’re working on. Let’s say if you pour 6 hours into it, you will get the project to 90% competency. But past 6 hours, the curve tapers off. Yes, you could improve maybe another 5-8% to get it to near perfection (as perfect as a man man thing could be), but the pursuit of that last 10% would cost you 6 more hours. That’s no longer an equal exchange. You’d now have to put in double the time to get a fraction of an increase in quality. It’s not an efficient exertion of energy — it’s not worth it. 

Sure, there are some things in life that may be worth investing every last ounce of effort you have in you, but to be completely honest, mostly everything is not that. If you’re commissioning a sculpture for royalty — okay, maybe then put in your all. Exhaust yourself. But don’t confuse yourself that every client is royalty.

I know this is a piece of advice that goes against what many great people say. They tell you to empty the tank. They tell you to exhaust yourself. They tell you to toil over it to get it to perfection. Here’s what they’re not telling you: they don’t do that in every aspect of life. Actually, they probably only do that for their art, and everything else in their life is a profit/loss analysis that they’re balancing on the energy account. 

The cultural sentiment however is that we should care about it all, because to the people who are telling you to care about this thing or that thing, that one thing is their all. In other areas of life, they balance their energy. In that one area that they’re trying to convince you is important, though, that’s where they give their all. 

Caring about it all isn’t worth your energy. Thus, my advice is to run a profit/loss analysis in every single situation you encounter. You must ask yourself if it is giving you enough energy in return, and the second you realize it’s not, you must duck out. Excuse yourself. Pull the energy back. Realize when “this isn’t going anywhere.” Stop wasting yourself.

There’s a saying I heard long ago: “Don’t engage crazy.” The advice counsels us to not engage in an argument with an unreasonable person. Why? Because that unreasonable person is not operating from a logic-based system, so there is no sense to their framework. Meaning that you can go in circles trying to reason with them, but whatever you say to them can be twisted, misinterpreted, or turned back on you — because their way of interpreting things doesn’t make sense. Ultimately the result is circling in an argument with no end. Suddenly, an engagement with this person is costing you a lot more than it’s giving you.

In the middle of the argument, when you’re exhausting yourself trying to get them to see reason, you have to ask yourself, “What is this giving me?” The answer is probably honestly something like an ego boost that you’re right, validation that you are a reasonable person, or protection of your pride. 

Why do we ever fight with anyone? We believe we are right and they are wrong, firstly. But more importantly, we want to show them that. My advice in this example is that you don’t need to prove to them that you’re right. Because, even if somehow you could prove that, all that does for you is give you a momentary sense of relief that you have a solid worldview — that you are not unreasonable. But what did it take from you? How much energy did you put into that interaction? Was it really worth it?

The Bible actually talks about this concept. And again, I say, it is simply completely functional. The Bible says, 

“The Lord will fight for you; all you need to do is be still.” (Exodus 14:14, NIV)

“Do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also.” (Matthew 5:39, NIV)

“A man of understanding remains silent when insulted.” (Proverbs 11:12, NIV)

Why? Why does the Bible constantly advise to not fight? Surely, there are times we must stand up for something, right? The advice really is that most of these fights are not worth your energy. The Bible also says, “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NIV). 

To not fight is an act of faith. It says: “Everything will be okay anyways. I don’t need to make it okay.” Moreover, it’s an act of wisdom. “A man of understanding,” doesn’t fight because he understands it’s not worth his energy.

In that process of not fighting, you save your energy, and therefore your strength. Because fighting requires strength. It’s an exertion of energy. And though you can look at the Bible as religious, I also urge you to see it for the functionality in its philosophy. If you don’t exert energy on things that aren’t worth it, you have more energy for the things that are.

It’s my suggestion to you that a “fight” is not simply an argument. Rather, we can consider it any exertion of energy that is not giving you a balanced return. It is a fight trying to be friends with someone who does not carry the load of effort with you. It is a fight trying to make a romantic relationship continue with someone you do not find interesting. While we may convince ourselves that these things are normal, they’re not actually the baseline we should be functioning from.

Your energy doesn’t lie to you. You could meet a potential partner and, in your mind, recognize that they check a lot of the boxes you look for, but if you don’t find them interesting, fun, engaging — then you’re fighting upstream. You’re pouring a lot of energy into a person who doesn’t make you feel lighter back. Someone may be a lovely person to be friends with, but if they aren’t equally stepping towards you to develop the relationship, you’re pushing against the current. It may look like love, but that’s a fight — even if it’s dressed in beautiful clothing. 

The place I want you to get to is where you can tune into that gut feeling and, before investing all the energy, gauge where this road is taking you. The mind may tell you one thing — “it needs to be perfect,” “you need to put in more effort to have these things,” “you have to earn it” — but your energy doesn’t lie. Your body already knows. It feels the energy being sucked before you ever put that energy in. Don’t fight through that feeling. Don’t fight your internal compass.

This isn’t advice that “Effort is bad,” but that “Effort without returns is worthless.” I’m not telling you to go through life effortlessly in every sense, but rather that if you allow yourself to only invest in things that give you a proportionate amount of energy back, then it feels effortless. You feel like you’re floating — because that energy is helping carry you. 

We can give ourselves permission to let things be easier. They don’t have to be hard — and hard is not the equivalent of a lot of energy investment. Hard is actually the felt sense of an unequal return on investment. 

Letting things be easy may sound like settling for mediocrity, but it’s actually your competitive edge. You can do so much more if you feel like what you’re doing is fueling you with energy right back, rather than sucking you dry. You know of burnout, surely? The people who don’t experience burnout, and yet go on to achieve just so much, are the ones who allocate energy wisely.

These people don’t pour energy into anything that isn’t feeding them in some way. Therefore, although they are constantly exerting energy in doing things, it doesn’t feel like it. Because they’re being energized right back. This is a competitive advantage because it gives you longevity. How do you tear down a great man? Make him weak. What is weakness? A felt sense of fatigue. A lack of energy. 

Nothing can tear you down if you are full of energy. Knock you down? Sure. But keep you there? No. Because you’ll keep getting back up. Energy is agility. It is perseverance. It is your strength. So when the Bible advises us to rest, it’s so that we are strong. 

Life is far too full of small troubles with big shadows. They look like monsters, but they’re actually often completely inconsequential. 

If you pour into every single opportunity that crosses your path, you’ll be empty. You must be selective with what gets your energy. These are the energy economics, you need to act strategically with your investments. 

As soon as you see something taking more energy than it gives you, leave it. Let go of the rope, otherwise it’ll burn you. It has to feel easy. In everything you do, it has to have a sense of ease to it. 

In order to exercise every day for years, you have to like what you’re doing. If you’re trying to run daily, but you hate running, you’ll never continue. It feels too hard. Greatness doesn’t feel like a constant upstream. Effort? Yes. Moments of pushing through? Yes. But every step in the process cannot feel like pushing. The only way you continue is by feeling that, even if just at times, you’re floating. That’s the give and take.

If you were to ask any seriously great athlete about their experience, I think they would tell you from a logical standpoint, “Yes it was hard.” Sure, it was hard to wake up at 5 am, to practice for 4 hours straight. They had to push through the moments that said, “I don’t want to do this right now.” But, the sneaky secret is that their entire process didn’t always feel hard.

I’ve run a marathon, and while, yes, I can recognize it was hard to do and hard to train for, I also very much recognize that I am remembering the hard moments. When I remember my training, I remember the moment in 40°F where I was somehow freezing and overheating at the same time in the middle of my 20 mile run, and pulling over to have coughing attacks. I’m remembering during my 18 mile run when I was so hungry I had to run back home to eat some bread, and then go back out and finish the run. I’m remembering at mile 20 of my marathon when I looked around and everyone around me was struggling to keep going — which was the last thing I needed to see in my state. 

Those were the hard moments. But, actually, most of the work was like floating. Most of the miles I put in during training, I barely felt. They felt easy. And that’s the only way that training for a marathon was possible. Because for the moments that really mattered — that I had to push through — I had to just get through that moment. I only needed so much strength. But so much else of the training was easy enough. 

Surely, for Michael Jordan, there were moments getting to the gym that felt painfully difficult. But when he was there, I can imagine it felt like his natural state. Putting a ball through a hoop, drilling — not a fight.

The energy economics aren’t personal, but they make or break you. Putting energy into something that doesn’t give you anything back just doesn’t make sense. You can get mad at the traffic of your city, but…why? What does getting mad give you? What does it give you? If the answer is nothing, stop letting it take from you.