Got Margin? (pt 1)

These LiveDifferent Challenges are starting to take over my life.  In a good way! What I mean is, I feel like each week something starts brewing in my mind and I can’t wait until Friday.  So whenever this happens I figured I will just start tossing out ideas, so I can get feedback from ya’ll before the official Challenge on Fridays.

So the last few nights in bed my dear husband has been been unable to contain himself while reading and started reading aloud exerpts to me from this book.  Well, since when I’m writing I am completely in the right-mind creative zone, I am absolutely incapable of pausing or even entertaining the smallest consideration of another thought at those times.  So, dear Jeff reads an amazing quote by William Wilberforce, and I completely ignore him.  Last night he was reading a quote about limits, and he finished by “reading”: “And there is always such and such a limit for humans, as in the limit of my wife’s patience when I am reading to her while she’s trying to write.” That got a smile out of me and I did pause long enough to thank him for his sensitivity.

But today, after writing my Much Ado About Nothing post, which you yawned through, I looked around for something to stimulate my sluggish mind and saw the book that my husband has been raving about: Margin. (BUY IT HERE)  A little reluctantly, I picked it up, made myself a big mug of green tea, and settled into the LazyBoy and began to read.  Whoa! No wonder Jeff was overcome with wanting to read aloud to me!

I will likely post 3 entries about this topic, concluding on Friday with the official LiveDifferent Challenge.  The book, written by Medical Doctor Richard A. Swenson, is divided into three sections: The Problem, the Prescription, and the Prognosis.  The Problem is Pain.  We are experiencing the pain of progress at an exponential rate.  Simply glancing through the appendix of this book reveals that life is coming at us in exponential proportions.  Population, Mail, Health Care Costs, Home Prices, Volume of Advertising, Number of Prisoners, Life Expectancy, Bankruptcies, Federal Debt, and Number of International Telephone Calls are ALL increasing exponentially.  And with this increase comes an increase in pain.  We are seeing divorce, depression, anxiety, debt, crime, alcoholism, drugs, suicide, all climb to epidemic levels.  So if we have bigger houses, more cars, higher salaries, and more exotic vacations, why are more people than ever choosing to end their life or escape through drugs, illegal or prescribed?

Progress, Swenson insists, is not evil, but we must realize that somewhere, in the midst of all of this progress and increase, there is a limit.  While athletic records are being constantly broken, there are limits.  A man may run the mile faster than ever before, but there will be a limit.  A man cannot run the mile in one second, nor in one minute, so there will be a limit.  For 2000 years, the slowly climbing linear progression of change has meant that the danger of exceeding limits was still far off. But today, look around at the foreclosure signs and tell me that perhaps we’ve failed to recognize our limits.

WHen we fail to recognize limits we overload.  What is obvious in physical overload is not so obvious in the performance, emotional, and mental realm. We would never try to crowd 3 cars into a 2-car garage.  I don’t pour two cups of milk into my 8 oz. measuring cup. Physical limits are obvious.  But we have a harder time recognizing limits in the performance and emotional and mental realm.  Where is the limit of too many friends? Too many commitments?  Too much work? Too many emotional draining relationships?  We are not unlimited in our resources, even if we do have streams of living water flowing through our lives.  We are not God.

Lately, I’ve been lifting weights.  I have always had 5 lbs. hand weights, and I love them. But after having them for several years now, I’ve noticed that with curls and chest press, I really needed to use 8lb. weights in order to overload my muscles and help them become stronger.  However, there is a limit.  I don’t want huge muscles.  I want to be fit and in shape, but body building is not my goal. So, there will a limit that I put on how heavy of weight I will use and how much I will lift weights.  In my workout video, the instructor says at one point “You are unlimited in your potential.”  I always kind of shake my head at that point. Uh, that’s not true, Gari Love.  I cannot lift up our car.  I cannot bench press my husband.  So, there is a limit to my potential and acknowledgment of that limit is the key to mental health.  “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” is not an invitation to embrace absurdity.

So, I guess I’ll leave you with this for now.  Step one, we recognize that there is a problem.  We need more than a one-week vacation to Hawaii to deal with the stress and pain of life.  With ever increasing frequency, people are snapping, resorting to drugs, divorce, drinking, debt, death…because we’ve embraced “progress” and forfeited our souls.  What needs to change?  We need a little margin.