Chapter 10: Energy: How to Recharge Your Battery Every Day

I found that I could find the energy...that I could find the determination to keep on going. I learned that your mind can amaze your body, if you just keep telling yourself, I can do it...I can do it...I can do it!

—Jon Erickson,
writer

What Is Energy?

You may be surprised, as I was, to find out that energy is defined simply as "the capacity to do work." It comes from the Greek work en rgeia, meaning activity, which stems from the Greek word rg, meaning work. What it boils down to is that the amount of energy you have determines your ability to do work. It could be the kind of work you do in an office every day, or it could be the kind of work it takes to pedal a bicycle or chop some wood.

Here's the good news about action and energy: The more action you take, the more energy you have; the more energy you create, the more actions you can take. The two feed off each other. This has to do with inertia and momentum. Inertia is when "matter retains its state of rest as long as it is not acted upon by an outside force." In other words, once you take an action, you start the ball rolling. That's when momentum (the "force with which a moving body tends to maintain its velocity and overcome resistance") comes in. Once the motion begins, momentum takes over to keep it moving. One action begets another, and the energy of motion builds upon itself. As they say,

Chop your own wood and it warms you twice: once when you chop it and once when you burn it.

—Proverb