MAINTAINING MARGINS

Our department is fun. I’m not gonna lie. Honestly, it’s nearly sinful how much I enjoy the people I work for, with, and alongside.

We got into a deep discussion this week at our breakfast happy hour, as we often do, about…well, dying without regrets.

A couple of people mentioned their elderly parents and grandparents – how they regret having been driven by money and success, spending little time with the people they love all in the name of fancy clothes, fast cars, giant houses, status quo, etc, etc.

My ears immediately perked up. Oh, how I can relate. Fortunately, for me, my epiphany came early in my 30s. It was truly a moment of paralysis, one day, in my Controller days, that I realized for the two previous years, neither my children nor I had a doctors or dental appointment. Even more importantly, I hadn’t had lunch with my children at their school. And when evenings had once been “our time” to enjoy one another, they were spending more evenings and weekends with babysitters while mommy worked on her career.

Literally, over night, I declared a fresh start for myself and for us. With an exhale and a clean slate, I reevaluated my “yeses” and chose to turn some of them into “no’s.” The items that made their way back onto the list were priorities —promises to family and friends, job responsibilities, and a few small personal goals.

It takes a lot more effort to maintain margins than it does to fill them up. We all need to define our own margins. If we don’t, they will be defined for us in the form of no margins at all.

For the sake of my family, I have to fight for margin.

For the sake of my work, I have to fight for margin.

For the sake of my soul and my life with God, I have to fight for margin.

My soul isn’t made for hurry and neither is yours. We have to choose the margins in our own life and then fight to keep them in place.

Don’t let fear push you around.