Burnt Plate

It’s Thursday October 19th 2023 in the Tampa area of Florida and the weather was nice and cool. I just finished dropping my beautiful daughter off at daycare, and was about to get back to work. I decided to make a little breakfast before I made my way out to my office. Like many of us, I was thinking about work, and life, and what I needed to get done.

We had some leftover sausage, so I thought that I’d warm them up and then get to it. I put the sausage on a paper plate and threw them in the microwave for 30 seconds- I thought. I opened the microwave and there was a burned empty plate. I looked over and the sausages were on the counter, still cold.

Intrigued by the burnt plate I thought about it for a moment. What happened… If the energy has nowhere to go, it can be destructive. Ah ha.

I remembered a recent statement from a good friend. “I have two speeds- full speed or depression”. As someone who is similarly inclined, the seemingly simple moment really resonated with me.

Energy is just energy, neither inherently good or bad; however, if the energy has nowhere to go it can become destructive. If we don’t have substantive and meaningful things on our plate where does our energy go?

We can end up with a substantial amount of energy pointed at trivial things or perhaps nothing at all. That’s where people, especially people with high drive, can get into trouble.

It definitely feels like the more energy I aim towards the things that really matter to me the less “burnt my plate is.”

For me it’s family, health, learning, building, and executing. If I’m doing too many things outside of those buckets or too little inside of those buckets, I feel increasingly anxious.

Do more of what matters to you more often!