Do you ever actually “run out of energy”?

June 14, 2007 8 By Tad Reeves

The big-pharma powers-that-be are bitterly opposed betterment activities that cut into their profit margins, as they know that the problems their marketing machines are saying are solved with a lifetime of zoloft or paxil can actually be handled in a myriad of other ways, some as easy as taking a walk around the block.

But what about the growing trend for the latest energy drink to try to wake you up and augment what would otherwise be a snoozer of a day – another drag-through 8 hours of dead-end job burnout? There’s Red Bull, Monster, ScreamingEnergy, RockStar, PimpJuice, Full Throttle, Kablaam, and a zillion more. All of which trying to get the exhausted individual a pick-me-up.

However, a recent experience of mine has lead me to believe that Red Bull should be just as scared for their lives as big pharma.

Dead Tired

A few weeks ago I was doing the system administrator thing, and was around the clock handling some systems that had to do with a new website going up. It was a blitz to get this particular thing done, and a co-worker of mine and I were around the clock programming and tweaking systems to make them work.

It reached a point, though, where things were kind of bugging up, and I just hit the wall. I got so exhausted and I couldn’t keep my eyes open to save my life. I was typing and I think I must have spent about 45 minutes trying to type a “<BR>” tag in the code I was writing. I turned over to my buddy who was working with me, and he was nearly doing a faceplant into his flatscreen. I asked if he was doing okay, and he said, “Nawww…I’m fine.” Then, he scrolled down a few lines in his code and found about 6 lines of “RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR” where he had snoozed out mid-sentence. After that gave us a good laugh, we both realized we were fully, utterly spent. However, that also didn’t change the fact that there was a system that had to go on-line.

That’s where I sort of twigged on something.

Are you actually “running out of energy”?

Here’s where things don’t add up on this ‘energy boost’ thing. Look at this – when I was sitting there, in front of my keyboard, unable to keep my eyes open, was I actually “out of energy”?

I don’t think so. When I was in high school, I was a first-team All-Star on the soccer team, and one of the league-leading scorers in my senior year despite playing sweeper the whole time. My ball control was awful, but I simply ran my silly ass up and down the field longer and faster than the other guy. Now, I’ve experienced where I’m so totally exhausted, after 4 hours of practice, or after a gruelling double-overtime match, where you sit there issuing commands to the legs to move, and they simply cannot move. It’s not that you aren’t telling them to, it’s just that no matter what, they are physically too spent to do your bidding.

However, when I was sitting there, in front of the computer, passing out, it was not the same thing.  I had not now typed a for loop one too many times, and now I was just too muscularly exhausted to hit another key.  It was something else – something I was generating from inside that was missing.  I tell you – had the coffee, I had the liquid vitamin B, it was not helping.

What I did that Will Put Red Bull Out of Business:

The technology missing in this is covered in L. Ron Hubbard’s book, The Problems of Work.  The subject is exhaustionLRH covers in that first chapter:

“One begins to feel after he has been long on a job, has been considerably abused on that job, that to work any more would be quite beyond his endurance.  He is tired. The thought of doing certain things makes him tired.  He thinks of raising his energy or of being able to force his way along just a little bit further.  And if he does so, he is thinking in the wrong channels, since the answer to exhaustion has little, if anything, to do with energy.”  — LRH

There is a simple process covered in this book in the chapter entitled, “Exhaustion”, and is also covered in the Scientology Life Improvement course entitled How to Make Work EasierThe procedure is entitled “Take a Walk“, and lovers of complexity (i.e. psychiatrists) would probably laugh at how simple it is.  But do the process precisely as laid out in the book, and you’ll all of the sudden find your exhaustion gone.   And no need for Red Bull, RockStar, or PimpoMatic or whatever it is.

Needless to say, this was exactly what I did that night, and afterwards came right back to life and finished the project I had been staying late to finish.

No, Scientology has no official stance on ‘energy drinks’, and there is no battle being waged by Scientologists against Taurine productgion or any such thing.  But if you’re in a similar position (not like getting tired is common in the workplace these days) you might want to consider the Problems of Work book before investing in a $4.00 can of odd-tasting liquid.

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