Imagine having first class seats on your favourite airline that's about to take off to your whole new life in another country. Now imagine getting off that flight because you realise that the lady who sold you a box of juice in the airport has short-changed you a few nickels and dimes.

You get off the airplane, go back to the juice lady, and demand your nickels and dimes be given to you in fair amounts. But wait, there's confusion over which juice you actually ordered. Instead of letting this one go, and getting back to your first class flight that's about to take off, you actually opt to stay there at the juice vending corner to sort out the juice box mess!

This is what I call, "nickel and dime energy". Nickel and dime energy is a case of blinding pride. Nickel and dime energy will really have you leaving first class seats on airplanes ten minutes before takeoff because you were short-changed by a juice box vendor.

How does nickel and dime energy manifest in your life? It manifests in the times that you hold onto juice boxes because your pride won't let you take a few less coins than what you believe you rightly deserve. That looks like giving up happiness to save face for a handful of aunties with expectations.

That looks like giving up happiness to save face for a community that has held you to a few expectations. That looks like giving up the rest of your life, to fulfill a story you once promised yourself was for you. Digging your feet in at the juice stand to get your nickels and dimes because that's where your blinding pride has gotten you.

Meanwhile, your first class flight just took off to the rest of your whole life! And all your luggage was on it too. What's luggage? Luggage is your heart, your joy, your meaning. Your soul. In the end, you're standing there with your nickels and dimes, and you sure showed that juice box lady she couldn't mess with you! You're quite the hero of your own life, aren't you?

I have seen nickel and dime energy in action too much during my time on Earth, thus far. It breaks my heart when I attend funerals of people whom I know chose to stand their ground at the juice box corner in order to avoid shame. They spent their entire life that way. They died that way. I know because I was aware of how miserable they were, they told me.

Shame is just another negative emotion that for some reason, the human mind interprets as a cataclysm. In reality, the only way it becomes a cataclysm, is because of its ability to inhibit you from moving upward and on. Shame is like a dark mist decending over a field of flowers. Your mind tells you that within that mist, must lurk a hundred different monsters.

So, you decide never to walk through the misty field. But let me tell you, that the monsters in the mist do not exist. And if you choose to walk through that field, you WILL get to the other side. But if you don't? If you're too blinded by pride to allow yourself the feeling of shame? Then believe me, you will never get to the other side and you will in fact die and be buried on account of imaginary monsters. You will be buried in the ground clutching nickels and dimes.

Is this the story of your life? Is this the legacy you want to leave behind? Are you really going to stop living your life on account of the juice box ladies of your life? And sometimes, you are your own juice box lady! The shame exists in your own mirror! Standards you held yourself up to that you believe need to be kept. Listen to me: never be afraid of being seen as less-than. But always be afraid of being a dead body in the coffin, clutching nickels and dimes.