Money Skill #4: Understand life energy

Your life energy is that which animates your body. You and only you control your life energy. This has profound implications which are further explored in How to Discover Your Freedom. Life energy enables you to perform purposeful and productive activities.

Whatever life energy you've expended in the past is gone -- except for the money and other values, including knowledge, that you've saved and accumulated and are available for present and future use. The life energy available to you is a function of: (a) What you've saved and accumulated in the past in forms that can be carried forward; (b) The time you have available during the rest of your life on earth; (c) The "quality" of this time.

Under (a) you could include family connections, friendships, knowledge, skills, reputation, money, and any other assets that can be carried forward for future use. To think of your time left on earth (b) as limited is to think like a "deathist" who says, "Nothing is as certain as death and taxes." (See Health Freedom & Life Extension and Fiscal Freedom. The "quality" of the time (c) you have available is basically a function of your physical and mental health plus your knowledge and skills.

The limited view of life energy expressed by Dominguez and Robin is grossly mistaken and impoverishing. Life energy is unlimited. There are no bounds to the extent to which you can increase your life energy by improving your knowledge, skills, and health, and by extending your life. Their notion that "money = life energy" is also inaccurate. It's more accurate to say that you can save and accumulate some of your life energy as money and in other forms and transport it into the future.