082 Spend Yourself Well
Hey Sun, every second you turn four million tonnes of yourself into light and send it away.
What did we spend ourselves on today?
What did you spend yourself on today?
Morning. Light pours through a window, onto a plant, a face, a cup of tea.
That light left the sun about eight minutes ago.
What really happens
In the sun's core, nuclear fusion turns matter into energy.
Every second, the sun converts about four million tonnes of its mass into energy. It pours out as light and heat, and a tiny fraction reaches Earth and powers almost all life here.
How we know: The sun's mass loss to light follows from its measured power output and Einstein's E = mc², as NASA explains.
The turn
The sun spends itself every second, and the world lives on it.
Each of us spends ourselves too: time, energy, attention. The question is on what.
Three takeaways
- You are always spending yourself.
- Spend yourself on what gives light.
- Even a small part of your light can power someone else.
Burn for something worth the light.
Life is no 'brief candle' for me. It is a sort of splendid torch … I want to make it burn as brightly as possible