This is not about the power required to keep the lights on! Or the search for more efficient machines. Or the better utilisation of renewables. No, I am talking about how much energy I have. Strength, zest, for all manner of mental or physical tasks. One thing is clear, my resources are limited and they need managing. There is also the absence of strength. Weariness or fatigue affecting body and soul can creep in unawares. Of course there may also be medical reasons. Whatever the cause tiredness too needs to be managed. Occasionally all that might be needed is a quick nap.

As you may notice from the strapline of my website running is a regular activity for me. Like many runners I can testify to it often being a source of vitality. Not always. Train too much and one ends up fighting infections or getting fatigued. Generally though if one gets the level of practice right the body adapts to the right amount of increased stress favourably. A nice surprise is that there is a payoff for other parts of life. More energy for other things, mentally or physically.

Running also requires adapting mentally to changes in performance the passing of time. This is a fancy way of saying I am no longer as ‘fast’ as I once was! A few years ago a typical, comfortable 1 hour run along the local canal towpath and my feet would cover 9.6 km. Today an hour with the same route and perceived effort and the distance is only 8.3 km! Learning to cope with a sense of loss at this reduction in speed! There was also a time when my competitive streak would kick in when other runners were around. If anybody passed me I would endeavour to catch up and overtake her or him. Usually whilst trying to look cool and effortless! An unashamed conceit if ever there was one. I would be pushing myself to the limit! Nowadays I am more content to let things be. People can pass. That’s OK. Thankful for the fact I can still run! Life goes on.

There is also the energy needed to cope with the many other changes that all of us face by just being alive. Life on earth means moving through space and time. It is not possible to ‘Stop the world, I want to get off’. We are constantly travelling through new terrain. This is so even when our days seem humdrum or routine. Each journey is unique and personal to each of us. We bring our differing mental and physical resources to the day. Yet, as said before, our energy is finite. There is a need to handle the different stresses. Each pressure adds to the whole. Again, I refer to running. Helpful coaching advice is to add together all the different stresses you experience. This serves as a barometer for training level. Heavy physical training for many months means that unrelated mental and emotional stresses will inevitably come along. This is a signal that training level should be dialled back. Otherwise I risk compromising my immune system. Similarly with life itself maybe there are some pressures I can avoid or reduce?

On trying ‘to stop the world and get off’ there is the temptation to look backwards. Live in the past rather than with today’s demands and opportunities. A poignancy, maybe even lament, for what once was. Never again will the fashions or buildings of the day be the same. Neither also the people or the way they related to you return. A regret perhaps of not savouring something more when it happened. Yet thinking we can capture an event and ‘store’ in some way is elusive. We are not some kind of machine that can hoover up things and file away. It was interesting the advice given by an astronomer to people at the recent total solar eclipse in Mexico and North America. For many this would have been a once in a lifetime experience… ‘Put your camera away and enjoy the moment’.

Speaking of cameras looking through photos from long ago can be a quirky experience. Not sure though if I would recognise my 30 year old self if I met him in the street! Everything changes and it is impossible to go back. Being grateful for the people, friends and places that have shaped my life is good.

What remains? I could ruminate over the experience of loss, of regrets or disappointments. Hardly a recipe for renewed strength. Or I can choose to be thankful. To God, the author of life. Practicing gratitude integrates what was good and worthwhile about the past into the present. In return there is strength and hope to move forward. 

“The beauty of loss is the room it makes for something new. If everything that came to us were to stay, we would be dead in a day from mental obesity. The constant flow of loss allows us to experience and enjoy new things. It makes vital clearance in the soul. Loss is the sister of discovery; it is vital to openness; though it certainly brings pain. There are some areas of loss in your life which you may never get over. There are some things you lose and, after the pain settles, you begin to see that they were never yours in the first place. As the proverb says: ‘what you never had you never lost’.”

Eternal Echoes, John O’Donahue