The document discusses the importance of energy over time. While time allows us to do things, our energy level determines what we can accomplish. Energy comes from our thoughts, emotions, relationships, and environment. Though relationships indirectly influence energy, we have direct control over how we perceive others and our surroundings. Maintaining high energy is crucial for achieving goals, as energy impacts our thinking, speed, endurance, and overall productivity. The key is choosing relationships, activities, food, and environments that enhance our positive energy and avoiding things that deplete it. We have significant control over managing influences on our energy level.

1. Time vs. Energy
There is continuous hoopla about the value of time. Is time all
that they say that it is cracked up to be? Is it really that
important? After all, we don't talk about time the way that we
talked about money? We don't go after time the way that we
go after money? I'm here to say that time is absolutely
important! If you have time, it enables you to do the things
that you want to do and allows you to learn how to do the
things that you do not know how to do or, to which you not
yet have access. However, energy is vitally important, yet often
ignored. Why is energy overlooked so often when it is so
important for us to do what we want to do in this life? It is
overlooked because time is easier to grasp. We can measure
time. We understand that if ask anyone else on this earth, they
will agree that one hour equals 60 minutes.

2. They will agree that 60 seconds equals 1 minute. We are simple
creatures by nature. By habit, we gravitate to what we can see and
measure. We perceive things we see as easier to accept in reality,
and therefore easier to control and understand. If we gave ourselves
the chance, we would recognize that we have just as much control
over our energy and I would argue more control over our energy
than we do our time. Our energy comes from many sources. What
we choose to entertain in our minds influence our level and power of
our energy. What we choose to feel with our emotions or perceive
with our senses dictate the strength of our energy. The people who
we choose to have relationships with, indirectly influences our
energy. Many of us believe that our relationships have a direct
influence on our energy. It simply is not true. When someone
behaves the way that they choose to behave, there is a moment an
intermediate force if you will that we own. In that moment, we
choose to have a relationship or not have a relationship with that
person.

3. We choose to deem what that person says or does as important or
choose to perceive what that person says or does as unimportant.
We assess the level of interaction and level of importance that each
and every person will have in our lives. Therefore, no relationship
has a direct influence on our energy.
There is one exception of course, and that is in the instance where
your physical world has been controlled and therefore kidnapped by
someone else. Now let's get to the importance of energy and why
energy is truly so powerful. I can share an instance of one day when I
was completing the book, Journey to Authentic Joy; I had so much
energy that day. It felt as if I was placing 200 words a minute on that
page. As I was working, I received a call that contained very bad
news from someone close to me. All of a sudden, I felt like the
energy that overflowed abundantly from me, had dissipated within
seconds. I stopped writing to lie down and thankfully started to pray.
I let my flesh and anxiety get the best of me.

4. I woke up that morning as an undefeated warrior to end up weak
and frail as a doe preyed upon with a bow and arrow.
I decided to go take a drive in the country, because it's always easier
for me to revamp my energy surrounded by God's most natural gifts.
As I drove to the most abandoned and desolate rural areas of
Georgia, I felt the safest that I could possibly feel. Beautiful tall green
trees were everywhere coupled with thick, ever flowing green blades
of grass. The sky was a beautiful powder blue with yellow sun rays
shining brightly. The day truly could not have been any
more beautiful. I felt as if I could stay there forever. I could not. Or
more accurately, I would not. However, what I would do was to bring
that peace with me out of those woods. I would decide that I would
choose to meditate on God's great gifts on this earth and give less
attention to the things I could not control. The way that we choose
to see and use energy is up to us. At any given moment in any given
time we have the access and power to greater energy. Our energy is
going to dictate what we can do, how clearly we can think, and how
quickly we can do what we do.

5. It gives us the ability, speed, and endurance. Our energy will dictate
how much we achieve and the level of quality, to which we achieve
it.
While there are many elements that have only an indirect influence
on our energy, that level of indirect influence can be grand. It is very
important that we use whatever power and control that God gives us
to manage those indirect influences effectively and be able to
optimize our energy level to accomplish what we want to do.
Therefore, choose your relationships wisely. Choose your
environments wisely. Choose your activities wisely. Have intention
with what you eat and how you exercise. Use intention by
gravitating to those people, ideas and places that bring joy and
positive energy to you. Use intention by distancing yourself from
people, ideas and places that consistently decrease your level of
positive energy.
God has ordained you as the captain of your ship. Use the authority
that He has given you to paint the most magnificent masterpiece of
your life with the colors that are in your palette.