One of the things I am loving about being underemployed is that I have regained margin in my life. I have time for lots of people and even things I just love to do. The stress of an overscheduled life is less true of me today. My motto of "people over projects" is now more real to me than ever before.
Richard Swenson, M.D. describes margin like this in his terrific book Margin:
Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives:
Margin is the space between our load and our limits. It is the
amount allowed beyond that which is needed. It is something held in reserve for
contingencies or unanticipated situations. Margin is the gap between rest and
exhaustion, the space between breathing freely and suffocating.
Margin is the opposite of overload. If we are overloaded we have
no margin. Most people are not quite sure when they pass from margin to
overload. Threshold points are not easily measurable and are also different for
different people in different circumstances. We don’t want to be
under-achievers (heaven forbid!), so we fill our schedules uncritically.
Options are as attractive as they are numerous, and we overbook.
If we were equipped with a flashing light to indicate “100
percent full,” we could better gauge our capacities. But we don’t have such an
indicator light, and we don’t know when we have overextended until we feel the
pain. As a result, many people commit to a 120 percent life and wonder why the
burden feels so heavy. It is rare to see a life prescheduled to only 80
percent, leaving a margin for responding to the unexpected that God sends our
way.
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