Day 1686
You Are the Energy You Attract
I came across a tweet on X today about the idea that the energy you radiate into the world influences the people around you. Call it frequency, vibes, resonance, the Holy Spirit, or whatever you want, but I think there’s something profound here. Have you ever noticed how being around someone who’s genuinely happy makes you happier? Or how someone who’s constantly miserable can suck the joy out of an entire room? It’s almost like we’re constantly transmitting & receiving signals from one another, whether we realize it or not. Maybe there’s some deeper spiritual mechanism at play, or maybe it’s simply human psychology & the way we’re wired to respond to each other. I don’t pretend to know for sure, but I do know that the way you approach the world has a tremendous impact on how you experience it. And perhaps even more importantly, how the people around you experience it. You are the energy you attract. And if you want to attract more love, joy, gratitude, & kindness, maybe the first place you should look isn’t out into the world, but inward at yourself.
Yesterday, after nearly 10 hours of driving, I stopped at Cook Out to grab a milkshake. The service was painfully slow, I was exhausted, & quite frankly, I just wanted to get home. There was this happy-go-lucky boomer waiting for his milkshake who kept trying to crack jokes & share a laugh about the whole situation. Instead of reciprocating, I pretty much zoned out. I wasn’t rude to anyone, but I certainly wasn’t radiating much joy either. Looking back, what a missed opportunity. Here was this guy trying to make an annoying situation a little more enjoyable, & I couldn’t even muster the energy to laugh with him. Interestingly, I also caught myself appreciating how effortlessly one of the employees navigated the register. What looked like second nature to him would probably take me quite a bit of practice to master. It reminded me that everyone has their own skills, struggles, & experiences that we rarely stop to appreciate. The milkshake wasn’t going to arrive any faster because I was frustrated, but me & the boomer both could have walked away from that interaction a little happier had I simply met that man where he was. Sometimes people are offering us little moments of love & connection, & we’re too caught up in our own heads to receive them.
One of the things I’ve been enjoying more & more as I listen to the Bible is just how much wisdom is compressed into such short passages. It’s almost like these little pockets of data that you can spend a lifetime unpacking, finding new connections & interpretations every time you return to them. Jesus tells us to “love your neighbor as yourself,” & I think there’s an incredible amount of wisdom packed into those few words. We often think about loving others as something we do for their benefit, but what if it’s also one of the greatest things we can do for ourselves? Proverbs 15:1 teaches that a gentle answer can turn away anger, & James 1:19 reminds us to be quick to listen, slow to speak, & slow to anger. Think about how much better our relationships might be if we actually practiced those ideas instead of merely agreeing with them. The next time someone frustrates you, what if you took a breath before responding? What if you tried to understand where they were coming from instead of immediately defending yourself? What if you made a conscious effort to say something kind about someone even when you were upset with them? None of this guarantees that another person will respond positively, but it does give us far more control over the energy we’re contributing to the interaction. And I think that’s an incredibly powerful thing.
I just finished running a mile tonight, & man, that mile kicked my arse… But! (& here is the important part): I feel so much better now that it’s done. The funny thing is that I wasn’t even planning on running tonight. I just told myself that if I could get my socks on, I was going for a run. That’s it. The socks were my trigger. Once they were on, the decision had already been made. And I think there’s something amazing about creating little heuristics like that in our lives. Maybe for you it’s putting on your workout shorts, opening a book, getting down on your knees to pray, or picking up a pen to write a few sentences. The point is to create a small action that makes the bigger action easier to follow through on. I was thinking about this the other night with something as simple as doing 10 jumps every morning. That’s 3,650 jumps in a year & 36,500 over a decade. And that’s assuming you never do more than 10. But the beautiful thing about getting started is that often you want to keep going. Ten jumps turn into 20, then 50, then maybe 100. The same principle applies to kindness, gratitude, patience, & love. What if you made it a habit to compliment someone every morning? Or thank your spouse for something they did? Or approach the first person you encounter with a genuine smile? Small actions compound, & over time those little decisions can fundamentally change the person you become.
Another way I’ve been thinking about this is how we react when we encounter someone we genuinely admire. Imagine you’re a huge Taylor Swift fan & suddenly you see her walking down the street. Or you’re a massive football fan & Tom Brady walks into the restaurant where you’re eating. For me, it’d probably be some Bitcoiner I’ve spent countless hours listening to on podcasts. I’d be amped up, excited to talk to them, & eager to share how their ideas have influenced my thinking. But why? What actually changed in that moment? The person simply showed up, yet your entire emotional state shifted because of the meaning you’ve attached to them. Their work, their ideas, & your perception of who they are brought something out of you. Now imagine becoming the kind of person who brings that same excitement, warmth, & inspiration out of the people you encounter every day. I’m not suggesting we all need to become celebrities. Quite the opposite. Maybe the goal is to become the person whose presence makes someone else’s day a little better. Someone who listens, encourages, laughs, & genuinely cares. Someone whose friends & family are excited to see them because they know they’ll walk away feeling appreciated. And the beautiful thing is that you don’t need fame, wealth, or millions of followers to become that person. You just need to start practicing.
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This also got me thinking about something I’ve been reflecting on a lot lately. The medium matters. Which is a pretty funny thing to write on a website literally called Medium LOL. But seriously, think about how much the way we communicate changes the message itself. You can have an incredibly meaningful conversation with someone at church, opening yourself up, confessing your shortcomings, asking for forgiveness, & trying to grow closer to God. Or you can have an amazing conversation at a nightclub after a few drinks. I’m certainly not knocking partying. I’ve had plenty of great nights & meaningful conversations in those environments too. My point is that the setting, your state of mind, & the method through which you communicate all influence what gets communicated. I’ve noticed this even more as I use AI to help me write & think. These models have learned from an extraordinary amount of humanity’s accumulated writing, yet what they give you depends so much on what you bring to them. I provide my experiences, questions, beliefs, & the little models I’ve constructed in my own mind, & AI reflects those ideas back through an entirely different set of learned patterns. Sometimes it challenges me, sometimes it helps me articulate something I couldn’t quite put into words, & sometimes it draws out insights I didn’t even realize were buried in my thoughts. No doubt there is something beautiful about that collaboration between man & machine when it’s intentional. But as much as I love technology, I will never fade putting actual pen to paper. I recently spent time writing a heartfelt handwritten letter, & while it would’ve been much easier to send the same words in a text, I knew it wouldn’t carry the same weight. The handwriting took time, attention, & genuine effort. The words might be identical, but the medium changes the message. Communication has practically become instantaneous, even when you are geographically seperated from someone, so slowing down & being deliberate is one of the most meaningful things we can do.
I have this funny thing I say whenever I’m drinking a White Monster. I am what I drink. I’m the White Monster. I’m a beast. I’m an animal. I’m a force of motherfu**ing nature, baby. And while I’m in no way joking, whatsoever, I do think there’s something powerful about the stories we tell ourselves. If you constantly tell yourself you’re miserable, unlucky, incapable, or that everyone around you is out to get you, how do you think that’s going to affect the way you approach the world? Now imagine telling yourself that you’re capable of improving, that you have an incredible amount to be grateful for, that you can bring joy to others, & that you have the power to make your little corner of the world better.
Those thoughts are white magic. Positive thinking alone will solve every problem you have with enough time. You thoughts change what you notice, the decisions you make, & how you treat the people around you. So here’s my challenge. Tomorrow morning, do one small thing that your future self will thank you for. Put on the socks. Do the 10 jumps. Say a prayer. Write someone a note. Tell someone you love them. And when a stranger offers you a moment of connection, don’t be so caught up in your own world that you miss it.
I am constantly becoming more conscious of the energy I bring into every interaction. Not because I expect everyone to reciprocate, but because I believe it’s the right way to live. We can’t control everything that happens to us. So control how you respond & what we put back out into the world when it kicks us straight in the gonads.
You are the energy you attract anon. Simple as.
So if you want to attract better, start by becoming better. And next time some happy boomer tries to crack a joke with me while we’re waiting for our milkshakes, I hope I’m wise enough to laugh.
11/2/26
Conor Jay Chepenik
