When our emotional fuel is low, we can't do an Indy pit stop and refuel quickly. Our emotional reserves can be compared to a car battery. If we sit in a parking lot and run all our car's accessories - radio, headlights, and so on - we can probably sap that battery in about ten minutes. After that massive drain, suppose we then take the battery to a service station and say, I'd like this battery charged in ten minutes. What would the attendant tell us? No, we're going to put the battery on our overnight charger. It's going to take seven or eight hours to bring it all the way back up. It has to be recharged slowly or else the battery will be damaged. Likewise, to recover properly from an emotionally draining activity takes time.

When you are immersed in writing an essay for classes, you can easily forget that you are trying to communicate with a specific person - your teacher, who will grade the essay. However, you should always keep this in mind: What can you write that will most impress your teacher? A teacher is probably not going to be overly impressed by flawless grammar and spelling; those qualities are expected. What will impress the teacher is the quality and strength of your ideas. Ideas are the critical component of a good essay. They must be communicated in a manner that makes them accessible to the reader. Coming up with sophisticated and intelligent ideas is your responsibility; no book can give them to you.