This one gave me a lot to think.
If, again, I consider the law of conservation of energy and Newton’s third law of motion, you cannot receive less energy out of giving more energy in some process. The energy you give in just changes its form.

A good question would be, if and how you can identify and sum all the energy which can be transformed on a longer period of time.

It is hard or almost impossible to objectively review when or how we benefit.

For example, my writing experience. I saw no benefits to my online writing.
Now, after 4, 5 years, I realize that I work in an industry, where many fail to imagine the consequences of being (information security) ignorant. And I see that my writing has helped me a lot in trying to catch their point of view, and chose my words wisely to try to bring their perspective closer to mine. 5 years wasted on writing articles?