There is a kind of energy that has nothing to do with being young, successful, or having everything go your way.
It is the energy to keep going.
The energy to remain grateful when life is good, to stay calm when things go wrong, and to keep preparing for tomorrow even when you cannot yet see what tomorrow will bring.
I have come to understand this differently as I have grown older.
I Once Wondered Why My Friend Prayed Before Every Meal
Many years ago, when I was studying in the UK, I became friends with a woman whose family I stayed with for a while.
Every time we sat down for a meal, she would pause before eating and pray.
She would thank God for the food in front of her and then say, “Amen.”
At the time, I didn't really understand it.
I remember thinking, why do we need to thank God for a meal? It is simply food.
Years later, I began to understand that perhaps the prayer was about more than the food itself.
It was a reminder to notice what was already there.
A meal on the table. A home. People to share it with. A safe place to live. Another ordinary day.
When we are young, it is easy to focus on what we do not have.
We want more money, more success, a better career, a better life.
But the older I get, the more I realize that our state of mind is often shaped by what we choose to pay attention to.
If we constantly focus on what is missing, it becomes easy to complain.
If we begin to notice what we already have, gratitude becomes possible.
And gratitude changes something inside us.
It does not mean pretending that life is perfect.
It means recognizing that even an imperfect life can contain things worth appreciating.
Positive Energy Is Not Blind Optimism
I used to think of “positive energy” as simply having a positive attitude.
I see it differently now.
Positive energy does not mean telling yourself that everything will be fine.
It means having enough inner strength to face what is not fine.
- You can be disappointed and still think clearly.
- You can fail and still learn.
- You can lose something and still appreciate what remains.
- You can experience a difficult period without deciding that your whole life is a failure.
In that sense, energy is not something mysterious.
It is the inner capacity to keep thinking, learning, adapting, and moving forward.
And I have noticed something interesting:
The same event can produce completely different responses in different people.
What a Falling Stock Market Can Teach Us About Mindset
I see this especially clearly in the stock market.
When the market falls sharply, some investors immediately complain.
They blame the market, the economy, the government, or someone else.
Others stop and ask different questions:
- Why did the market fall?
- Was my original analysis wrong?
- Has the company's business fundamentally changed?
- Did I take on too much risk?
- Was my position size appropriate?
- If the long-term thesis remains intact, is the lower price actually creating an opportunity?
Of course, a falling stock price does not automatically mean that we should buy more.
The important difference is not whether someone is optimistic or pessimistic.
It is whether they are still capable of thinking.
- One person sees only loss.
- Another sees information.
- One reacts emotionally.
- Another examines what happened and decides what to do next.
That difference matters far beyond investing.
Our circumstances may not always be within our control, but our response to them often is.
The Strength to Keep Building in Difficult Times
This is why I believe difficult periods can be more than something we simply have to endure.
They can also become periods of accumulation.
When life is going well, it is easy to exercise, read, learn, save money, build relationships, and work toward the future.
But what happens when life becomes difficult?
When the future feels uncertain, it becomes much harder to keep doing these things.
And yet, those may be the moments when they matter most.
The Chinese writer and artist Mu Xin is an example that has stayed with me.
During the Cultural Revolution, Mu Xin was imprisoned three times, and many of his unpublished writings were confiscated. While in prison, he wrote 66 pages of what later became known as Prison Notes. After he was exonerated, he eventually moved to New York, where he returned to painting and writing.
What strikes me is not simply that he eventually rebuilt his life.
It is that, during a period when his circumstances were extremely difficult, he continued to preserve his inner world.
- He kept thinking.
- He kept creating.
- He kept something alive inside himself.
That is a different kind of resilience.
Sometimes resilience does not mean changing your circumstances immediately.
Sometimes it means not allowing your circumstances to destroy the part of you that is still capable of thinking, learning, creating, and hoping.
We Are Also Building for a Future We Cannot Yet See
Much of what we do today will not produce an immediate result.
- Reading a book may not change your life tomorrow.
- Exercise may not transform your health overnight.
- Learning a new skill may not lead to an opportunity next week.
- Saving and investing may not make you wealthy quickly.
But these things accumulate.
And sometimes the most important things we build are invisible.
- Knowledge.
- Judgment.
- Health.
- Discipline.
- Emotional stability.
- The ability to start again.
These are forms of personal capital.
We do not always know when we will need them.
That is why I think it is important to keep building, especially when life is difficult.
You may not know what tomorrow will bring.
But you can still prepare yourself for it.
Growing Older Does Not Mean Giving Up on Life
There is another book that made me think about this from a completely different perspective: Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards the End.
Athill wrote the book in her nineties, reflecting frankly on aging, loss, death, relationships, and the changes that come with growing older.
What I find inspiring is not that she tried to deny aging.
She did the opposite.
She faced it honestly while continuing to remain interested in life.
The book has been described as a memoir about maintaining “hope, joy and vigour” in later life.
That idea resonates with me.
When we talk about resilience, we often think about overcoming a major crisis and making a comeback.
But there is another kind of resilience that is quieter.
It is getting older without becoming bitter.
It is accepting that some things are changing while remaining curious about what is still ahead.
It is waking up and finding something worth doing today.
It is reading another book, learning something new, meeting a friend, taking a walk, writing something down, or simply paying attention to an ordinary day.
Life does not stop being valuable simply because we are getting older.
Perhaps This Is What I Now Mean by “Energy”
I no longer think that having more energy means constantly feeling excited or optimistic.
To me, it means something quieter.
- It is the ability to be grateful when life is good.
- The ability to remain thoughtful when things go wrong.
- The courage to keep building when the future is uncertain.
- The willingness to learn from failure instead of being consumed by it.
- And the curiosity to keep living fully as we grow older.
Perhaps that is why my friend's simple prayer before a meal stayed somewhere in my memory for so many years.
At the time, I saw only a short prayer before dinner.
Now I see something else.
- A reminder to notice what I have.
- A reminder not to take ordinary things for granted.
- And perhaps, in difficult times, a reminder that there is still something worth protecting, something worth building, and something worth looking forward to.
Never Give Up on Yourself Too Early
Life will not always follow the path we expect.
- There will be setbacks.
- There will be losses.
- There will be periods when our plans seem to fall apart.
But we should be careful not to confuse a difficult chapter with the end of the story.
Sometimes the most important thing we can do is simply refuse to give up on ourselves.
- Keep your body strong.
- Keep your mind curious.
- Keep learning.
- Keep saving.
- Keep thinking.
- Keep creating.
- Keep preparing for tomorrow.
And when tomorrow finally arrives, you may discover that the strength you accumulated quietly during the difficult years has become one of your greatest assets.
Life is not over because today is difficult.
As long as we are still here, there is still something we can build, something we can learn, something we can appreciate, and something we can look forward to.
Perhaps true energy is not about having the power to control life.
Perhaps it is having the strength to keep meeting life—one day at a time.
