I have often heard of a bucket or tank being used to describe energy in life.

At the bottom of the bucket are leaks, small drips that drain energy, reduce it.  If my bucket gets to empty, completely empty, then my passion dies, drip.

I stop enjoying life, drip.

Or worse, I become a DRIP.

If the bucket is full, I bounce around the world. On fire. With passion.

If life is like a bucket of energy, it would be good to know what builds into it. And what reduces it.

So I started to focus on reducing the leaks, patching them up, stopping the drain of energy. With hindsight I see that it doesn’t solve the problem at all. If my energy is all but gone, stopping the leaks just slows the process of turning into one giant drip.

Of course, what a drip I am! So I focus on filling my bucket. I start searching for a tap, or a fire hose. A quick refill.  Anything instant.

But it too is allusive.

Then today as I try to take pictures of water drops in the rain. I realise energy comes one drop at a time.

Drop,

Drop,

Drop.

Once you have more drops coming in, that drips leaking out, your bucket starts to fill, your energy rises.

I’m sorted now of course. Most lakes and rivers are filled one drop of water at a time, I just need to hunt for drops, not drips. I would prefer steady rain of course.

Then it hit me. As my energy drips away, as my bucket gets empty, I become more of a drip. Then, I can become a drip to other people. I start draining their energy.

I realised that I need drops of energy, so that I can give drops of energy.

And I need to give drops of energy, so that I can get drops of energy.

This week I resolve to go in search of drops of energy.

Interesting question isn’t it? I often struggle to know what I will be doing next week, and in moments of absolute brilliance, I might do some top level thought into next 3 – 5 years.

I’m skim reading a book called “Total Leadership” at the moment and one of its exercises is to write down what your life and leadership will amount to in 15 years.

15 years is a long way away.

In 15 years, I will have been married for 27 years!

In 15 years, my eldest daughter will be 24!

In 15 years, I don’t want to be doing the same things I am doing now.

In 15 years, I want to have made a significant impact on the world.

It is an interesting think about 15 years from now. I have never done it before, but I sense that it will help give perspective to the small issues I currently face.

I was chatting with friends this week about mountains

Metaphorical ones.

Those huge obstacles in front of us. Projects, struggles, illnesses, financial problems, relationship issues … things that seem too BIG to handle.

We were discussing about how we often cry out to God and ask him to pick them up and through them into the sea. To make them go away.

And yet we need to climb mountains. They are good for us and through them we learn heaps and are cultivated and grown.

The problem with mountains is often the obstacle in front of us, is the issue of the moment.

We forget about what the view from the top of the mountain will be like.

We forget the satisfaction that comes from making it to the top.

We forget that climbing mountains is worth it.

We just see the obstacle!

Maybe when we remember how good the mountain can be for us, we will stop asking for it to be taken away, be thankful for it.

Maybe we will then focus on the more important task of getting to the top.