Are Stranded Assets Good?

I know the sports cliché of leaving everything out on the field. Essentially it means you used up all your available physical and mental resources during the competition. A winning effort was thought to be achieved because of that sacrifice. A losing outcome was felt to be noble, given the effort.

I’ll return to personal choices I can make.

I recently read an article about “stranded assets” concerning oil and gas reserves. The assets have characteristics such as location, accessibility and financial value. On that last point, let’s just leave it as billions of dollars.

There is an upward trend of oil companies walking away (running, in some cases) from underground fossil fuel supplies. They do this in at least a couple of ways. Norway is divesting itself of its shares in Canadian Oil Sands production companies. Other companies are still owning their assets, but they are declaring the value to be zero on their financial books. This means they don’t expect to see a return from the assets in any reasonable amount of time.

Many of these companies are transitioning their capital to greener technologies and related infrastructure.

Folks in Alberta and other intensive oil/gas production are appropriately nervous. For the record, I am not in the oil/gas sector. I am not an expert. I think that oil/gas will be around for some time to come, though on an ever decreasing demand trajectory.

Stranded assets are like a reserve of unused physical and mental energy, perhaps a financial component.

So I want to consider my position on leaving my personal assets of physical, mental and financial resources ‘on the field’ or ‘in the ground.’

I don’t have an “A” type personality. I am the second and last child in my family. Statistically, I was likely to grow up the carefree one, relaxed and laid back. I did. I guess my parents practiced on my older brother and were much more comfortable with parenting when I arrived.

I don’t play sports, and I don’t use the proverbial bumper sticker sports slogans; I give 110%, focus on the next game (after a loss), and so on.

Personally, I don’t subscribe to the life philosophy of giving everything I’ve got, every time. I sometimes think good enough is good enough. I know blasphemy to some, but not to me. It’s healthy, I say.

These blogs I write are an example. I was far from confident that I would be pleased and proud of my writings. But it was something I wanted to do. So I plunged in over a year ago intending to be good enough – and learn to develop and get better.

With that kind of philosophy, the walks along the furrows of life are an adventure with the destination sometimes taking second place.

Please give this a bit of a think. Think of a situation when others who love you might think good enough is good enough. Still, you are going all in, and another example when you feel ok, is ok, but others think you should try harder?

I’m curious about your thoughts. Please comment.

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