Observing My Energy Line: From Catering to Others to Returning to Myself

Lately I’ve been pondering my “energy line”—it feels like a dynamic chart recording daily ups and downs. Sometimes this line plummets to the bottom after intense bab coding or midterm prep, leaving me dizzy with scattered thoughts. But other times, it gets recharged by simple things, like an exhilarating run or an afternoon lost in reading. This push and pull is quite fascinating.

The Invisible Tug: Beware Those “Nauseating” and “Irritating” Moments of Depletion

One end of the energy line is high-intensity drain.

These days, I feel like I’ve been spinning through various projects. After finishing a math physics exam in the morning, I dive headfirst into Web App development in the afternoon, watching Teacher Bingbao’s speaking and listening courses, absorbing knowledge with genuine passion. But after the passion fades, there’s that feeling of extreme eye fatigue, being completely emptied out. When debugging is needed, it’s even more painful—I instantly want to smash my computer.

The Framer project was similar. I thought I could piece together the template in half an hour, only to find it wasn’t that simple at all. From website architecture and page navigation to component design and button colors and fonts—there’s so much to consider. If I couldn’t finish in an hour, I’d do another hour, and by the end, I really felt nauseous. In these moments, energy is being violently consumed.

Exams are the same. During the electronics exam, I found the questions quite different from previous years, with increased difficulty. I don’t really understand the meaning of this kind of competition—feels like a waste of time. But thinking about this during the exam doesn’t help, so I completed as much as I could. After finishing, I had 5 minutes left and was the first to hand in early and leave. In that moment, I could actually feel a kind of social pressure (corresponding to the principles mentioned in “Influence” that I read this month, haha)—when you’re not keeping pace with everyone else, your brain feels uncomfortable. This invisible pressure is also a form of energy drain.

Simple Healing: Brew Some Tea, Go for a Run, Make Peace with Life Itself

But after energy is drained, you have to find it again. This is the key to life.

I’ve found that the best way to recover energy is often through very basic things. Like running. Sometimes when my eyes are tired from reading, or I’m super frustrated making activity materials, just going out for a half-hour run makes me feel okay—life can continue. My whole being feels refreshed, like being rebooted. It’s wonderful.

Reading is also an energy refueling station. I finally finished “Influence” recently—over ten hours of reading in total, with one afternoon where I read for five hours straight. Though I was a bit drained afterward, the process was truly great. Sitting there, brewing tea, slowly reading a book—that feeling of settling down is a wonderful happiness experience. Reading while taking notes, occasionally smirking knowingly, thinking “Oh, so sometimes I operate this way, and sometimes I’m being operated on this way”—it’s really quite interesting.

Sometimes, simply enjoying life itself is healing. Finding an afternoon to brew tea, take a shower, wash the piled-up clothes, then take out the comforter, pillow, and shoes to sun—life feels wonderful. Then sitting down to read, and when tired, going to the balcony to soak up the sun, listening to birds, looking at the greenery—the mindset is completely different. Just that one afternoon felt like it completely healed the exhaustion from the previous month of busyness.

Farewell to Internal Friction: When I Understood That Blogs Are Written for Myself

Interestingly, beneath this energy tug-of-war lies a deeper issue: living in others’ evaluation systems versus following your own rhythm.

After posting a blog article, I’d get anxious and unconsciously check for likes. If I didn’t get everyone’s approval, I might feel a bit annoyed. But thinking calmly, I don’t need everyone’s approval, so let it go. Later I figured it out—when a blog is published, the biggest beneficiary is yourself, not the others we target. I hope my articles can help one more person in this world strive upward, while also treasuring the gift that creation leaves for myself. This conceptual shift is quite important—it saved me a lot of internal friction.

In life, we always have FOMO, feeling like we’ve lost something, but there’s really nothing to lose. What we have is only the beauty of this present moment. So whether it’s organizing events or anything else, if we can maintain the mindset of “what’s meant to be will be, what’s not meant to be is a blessing,” every moment becomes one of infinite gratitude.

In the end, the most important relationship is still the one with yourself. When I can work in different time blocks—morning for coding, afternoon focused on reading, evening running to clear my mind—following my own rhythm, I feel comfortable. The energy line becomes stable and strong, rather than oscillating violently up and down. Finding this rhythm is probably the biggest lesson lately.