Ok, so three quick successive posts on margin is really not going to work. This concept is so much more huge than I thought…we’re going to take the next four LiveDifferent Challenges to tackle it. It’s so exciting! I would still really suggest buying the book. Trying to sum it up in a brief blog entry is daunting…but we’ll try.
So, Wednesday we talked about the fact that we have reached an all-time high point for depression, anxiety, suicide, stress, burn-out, abuse, and divorce. While life-expectancy is at an all-time high, perhaps quality of life, that is happiness and contentment, is at an all time low. Something is wrong. As I suggested last time, perhaps it is that we have reached a limit and we’re in desperate need of margin.
Margin is defined as the space between your load and your limit. On a piece of paper, the margin is the white space between the written words and the edge of the page. As a grader in seminary, let me tell you that my #1 pet peeve in grading is opening a paper and seeing that the student has done one of three things: used size 10 font instead of 12, snuck in 1.75 line space instead of double, or changed the margins ever so slightly so the words creep over dangerously close to the edge of the page. They might think I don’t notice…but after reading 25 of them, I notice! And far from being impressed by their covert ways, I am annoyed because what this tells me is that they were incapable of completing the assignment in the given space. So, they have to cheat by doctoring margins. That bugs me. I have been known to write across the top of the page, “Ah! Give me some white space!”
So we have done this with our lives. In the name of diligence, we have clicked on those margins and dragged them closer and closer to the edge of the page, instead of simply acknowledging the appropriate boundaries necessary for mental, emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual health, and respecting those boundaries. Instead we have arrogantly assumed that the rules of margin aren’t for us, and we’ve packed our lives to the point of breakdown.
If you’re not convinced that this is an epidemic, check out these stats from the doctor who authored the book: “Adjusting for population growth, ten times as many people in Western nations today suffer from unipolar depression, or unremitting bad feelings, without a specific cause, then did half a century ago. Americans and Europeans have ever more of everything except happiness.” In one morning, nine of the eleven patients this doctor saw where on antidepressents. We are truly living in a “deteriorating psychic environment.” He observes that “millions of suburbanites seem to find that ‘the good life’ is only endurable under sedation.”
Not only are we sad, we we are overfed, under-exercised, sleep-deprived as well. We are in more debt than ever before. We have less leisure time, even though it was predicted in the early 20th century that by this time we would be down to a 2-3 day workweek because we could produce all that we “need” withing that amount of time. Ha! Whoever predicted that took no classes in human behavior. We don’t work for our needs. Instead, the workweek has risen rapidly over the past 20 years: “The average work year for prime-age working couples has increased by nearly 700 hours in the last two decades.” Exhaustion, burn-out, stress, and mental breakdown have become the norm.
So, what better way to LiveDifferent than to Get Marginalized and introduce some sanity into our lives? God is the one who created the Sabbath, He’s the one who set up the delicate balance of work, stress, rest. Let’s say no to the rat race of always wanting more, and say yes to God, who wants health, wholeness, and vitality for us! We will examine four areas: Margin in Emotional Energy, Margin in Physical Energy, Margin in Time, and Margin in Finances. I really feel as I’m reading this book that it is a profound secret I want to share. Again, I’d love to encourage you, if you can, to read the book yourself. It’s counter-cultural to say the least.
So, tomorrow tune in for Get Marginalized in our Emotional Energy! I’m off for a bike ride in the sunshine with my son…