Embedded Files
02-03-2024
‘Activation Energy’ is a term made familiar to me for the first time in year 11 chemistry (or perhaps earlier). It popped back up again during my science classes in the first year of my teaching degree.
Google will tell you: “Activation energy is defined as ‘the minimum amount of extra energy required by a reacting molecule to get converted into a product.’
In plain English: for a chemical reaction to occur, it often requires you to put in a little bit more energy to start it going. You can see when the energy required for a reaction is graphed, it first has to spike up, before the reaction takes over and things start to happen. Think about some dominoes lined up ready to fall. That reaction will take place, but only after you push (or blow) the first domino; it takes some extra energy to get it all started.
This year, I have once more remembered this principle. When one is lying comfortably in bed, with nothing pressing to do out of the bed, it takes an extra energy to get up. ‘Activation energy’ is required to say hello to someone new (and someone not new sometimes!), to tick off that to-do list, to book that trip, to read that email, to reply to that person. Activation energy asks extra of you. Just when you’ve become comfortable, activation energy screams “you need me if you want to keep going, if you want to achieve”.
Once you’ve started (hopped out of bed, said the first hello, written the first draft), the task is often so much more manageable. But why is it SO incredibly difficult to start? Why is the first energy required so much more than what is required to continue?
Perhaps, when a task MUST be completed, you’re forced to begin; activation energy is required, yes, but you have no option but to put in the work, to get it done. Maybe then, it's easy to 'activate'. Other times ‘activation energy’ can be so much more difficult because the task isn’t mandatory. It’s up to you to CHOOSE. The free choices are where I find the ‘activation energy’ spike is so much higher.
These thoughts are on my mind having just passed my ‘one month abroad-iversary’. The first couple of weeks in London took so much energy from me. Transporting your life abroad forces daily questions like: “What will I do today?; Who will I meet?; Where will I sleep?; How do I get there?; How do I book that?; Where do I find this?; Why can’t I do that?”…
I’m sure it’s a shared experience that all this leads to a place where you lie in bed of a morning, unable to find the motivation, the energy, to activate your movements for the day. And so at the crossroads you find yourself: stay and rot, or from some unknown place, conjure the energy to make a change.
Having found myself here many mornings, (perhaps you have too?), I wonder if this can be a metaphor for greater ‘movements’ in life. Stay with me; it requires activation energy required to start something new, to push outside of one’s ‘comfort zone’, to make a life change (large or small). My questions for you are: Where does that energy come from? Can you afford to spend it? Can you afford not to spend it?
But the Lord stood with me and gave me strength...
2 Timothy 4:17
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