When we are born, it is said, we are given our endowment - our personal packet of life force to be used for the journey - and also our gifts, talent or potential to be realized as we go along. I suppose it's a little like a bank account, a trust we inherit, which we are then free to spend or tend as life requires of us or our personalities compel us.

Like money, our endowments can be squandered, spread too far, too fast, gambled away, invested in a wild enterprise or whittled down to a bare modicum that leaves us struggling to survive in a tight container of limited resources, trying to realize our goals on a minimal budget. Alternatively, money can be invested, tended, some spent carefully and more conserved for its generative capacity. Money grows money, and if there is enough left in the bank (or a well-diversified portfolio), it grows money very nicely. Our endowments are just like that.

There are, naturally, a variety of situations that tend to deplete our life force. We can work too long and hard. We may work or live in unfavorable or difficult circumstances. We may not get enough sleep, miss meals, eat low-quality food or eat while rushing around, under- or over-exercise, or find ourselves struggling with difficult relationships. There are also accidents and illnesses that are out of our control but nonetheless demand that we mount a response and expend the resources required by the situation. All these things take their toll.

What does the accumulated toll look like? It can look like tiredness or chronic fatigue, anxiety, persistent colds, digestive disturbance, weight loss, irritability, forgetfulness, depression, family dissolution, dizziness, light-headedness, lack of excitement. It might show up as a deep sense of missing something in life the fun, the joy, the feeling of having explored one's talents and realized one's goals.

Back to the bank account - what are the things that grow interest, grow "qi" (the oriental term, broadly translated as the life force, and pronounced "chee"), so to speak? Balance, most of all, between work and play, rest and activity, inward and outward expression. Our culture is very outwardly directed and there is a huge impulse to do more, scale greater heights, run longer marathons and join more committees.

At the same time, there is an insurgent movement among us to spend more quiet time alone or with our families, adopt a qi building exercise like yoga, tai chi or meditation (or acupuncture!), go to bed earlier, drink plenty of water, reduce stimulants (coffee, soda, cigarettes, alcohol), eat healthy meals at regular intervals, cultivate right relationships and, very importantly, adopt the inner attitude of attuning to our lives carefully enough to hear the signals our bodies are giving us to take better care of ourselves and to see the opportunity that life is giving us to explore our potential.

Now may be a good time to take stock of those investments. I wish you the healthiest of dividends!