I’ve been enjoying a regrettably rare gift. My schedule over the holidays and first week of January has provided me space in my life. That is to say, my life hasn’t been overly crammed with activity and commitment. I’ve had room lately to think, enjoy, reflect, read, learn and relate not only more but better.
Richard Swenson wrote a book called Margin back in 1992 that affected me powerfully. One of the things that I retained was the importance of margins (or space or time reserves). Unfortunately reality crowded out the principle in the intervening years.
You need space in your life to do more and better the things that count most; the things I’ve mentioned above. That doesn’t eliminate other activities that must be done. In reality, space complements and enhances all those other things.
Conversations that aren’t rushed usually turn out to build better relationships. Reading that is done thoughtfully rather than crammed between appointments produces deeper insights. Reflection that is unhurried naturally trumps three minutes of intense contemplation.
My point isn’t really “got space?” You don’t. Your life, like mine, is inordinately busy. You get space. You make room by prioritizing and eliminating and reducing and rearranging.
Milk will make your bones stronger but space will make your life better.
Mark,
Having been a management and manufacturing consultant for more than 20 years now, I understand the need for TIME! Actually this was a discovery that happened when for some reason I did not have enough work. That “margin” gave me an interesting break to regroup ideas and after that I now create those spaces in my agenda as “booked.” This has helped me and my customers enormously. I am better equipped all the time to respond to their expectations and I am more satisfied.
Right ON!
Mark, I was (and still am) deeply affected by a book that’s even older than the one you cite. In 1962 Walter Kerr, the NYC drama critic, wrote The Decline of Pleasure. He blames our contemporary inability to enjoy life on our wholesale adoption of utilitarianism, a philosophy developed in Britain during the 19th century. It has taught us to determine value by utility: things, activities, relationships, etc. are deemed good not in and by themselves, but in terms of the results they produce.
I agree with you that not rushing things — conversations, reading, reflection — is essential. And a la Kerr, I would add that doing them simply for their own sake or even for their own enjoyment is equally essential. In today’s world what we need most is what we have so much trouble pursuing: space and the willingness to inhabit it without the expectation of a return on investment.