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Recently my wife got sick. She was down and out for nearly two weeks. Chest cold, fatigue, sinus pressure and all the fixing of a good virus. Urgent care and her doctor said it will take 5-10 days to run its course, which frustrated her, because we don’t have time to be sick. She kept apologizing to me for being sick (like it was a choice). That is when I realized we had done a really poor job of building margin into our busy lives.
We have 3 kids (10yrs, 8 and 5) and they are all in sports. Even a light week will consist of 3 practices and 2 games and that is prior to looking at our other commitments. My wife and I work full time, I travel at times for work, we run a small non-profit (www.tgvp.org – shameless plug) and we are involved in our church. These are all choices we have made, and if things are going well, we can pull this off each week. We have a good network of family and friends that help with events, carpools and support when needed.
But this week our plans fell apart. It wasn’t because we couldn’t pull off the week when one of us was down and out. Instead, it was the realization that we created a life where one of us felt they had to apologize to the other if they got sick.
This post will explore the barrenness of busy lives and also discuss how to build margin into busy family lives.
“Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” – Socrates
Wise words from the great Socrates. I am an average Modern Dad on a good day and Greek philosophy does not often intersect with that role. That said, this quote from Socrates has truth to it. I feel we are put on this earth to make it a better place. Much of the business in our lives do not do that on a daily basis.
That said, the activities that consume my family’s life are meant to bring experience and confidence to our kids. We try (key word is try) to model good citizenship to our kids and do this through our careers, church, relationships and how we raise them. There are many days I wonder if we are succeeding. It is in these moments of doubt, our kids will do something that make Mom and Dad so proud of who they are and this is the hope that keeps us going!
Back to Socrates. I do not feel our busy lives are barren. I understand what he is getting after and I know I have lived this type of life in the past. But at this moment, where things are very busy and we may be over-extended on the occasion, I do not truly believe that the things on our schedule are without merit. I think the things we have committed to are purposeful and will lead to the end goal of making a positive impact on this world.
We Don’t Have Margin for Busy Lives
So, I have extoled that the busy lives we have created are purposeful, however, I opened by saying we have created a situation, where Mom or Dad do not have “time” to get sick. Both of these things can’t be true, can they?
I grew up in a household where if you committed to something you saw it through. It didn’t matter how painful, boring or ridiculous the thing was, you honored your commitment. I remember playing a year of “select” basketball in 4th grade. I never saw the court. Several of the kids went on to play D1 in college and at 4th grade, this league and coach were hardcore. I may have gotten a few minutes at the end of the game if it was a blow out, but that was about it. Seems crazy for a 4th grade team right. Well, I was at every practice and game. My Dad was not about to allow me to bow out of a commitment because of a perceived injustice.
For the most part, this “honor” has served me well. People in my life generally view me as reliable and trust that if I have committed to something, I can be counted on to see it through.
As a Dad now myself, I want my kids to have this same sense of responsibility. I push them on things they commit to and we are not going to miss a commitment, unless, we have a very valid excuse. Where I missed the boat in communication with my wife in this area is defining what is a valid excuse. I think her guilt in being sick this week, is because she is unable to help in fulfilling our commitments and she knows how important those things are to me.
Building Margin
Now we need to build margin for our lives. I recently read the book “Present over Perfect” By Shauna Niequist. In the book, Shauna talks about being a workaholic and everybody’s go to person to get things done. This lifestyle and commitment to work took away from fully experiencing life (most notably her faith and family). In the book she talks about making concentric circles with the most important items (family, close friends, etc…) in the middle circle and then lesser important items placed in the outer circles. She used this concentric circle map to make decisions on what she could commit to verse turn down. She used this hierarchy to build margin in her life, that allowed her to slow down and refocus on what mattered to her (center circle items).
I realized that our family needed our own concentric circles. This concentric circle map now guides our commitments and is used as a contingency plan we can lean on when things go awry (sick, unexpected travel, etc…). Prior to this, we would just muscle through to meet all commitments which often ended with guilt and/or bitterness and exhaustion (hence why we were apologizing to each other for being sick).
So now we live on our concentric circles. They may ebb and flow over time and we have the ability to change them on the fly if we both decided this is appropriate. This has given us a roadmap as to how we can still function in our busy lives when life throws us curveballs. We may cancel a commitment here or there and lean on some family and friends to help more if needed. Just having this mutual understanding between my wife and I has enabled us to build margin while still living our purposeful busy lives.
Pulling it all Together
In conclusion, I don’t think clearing our schedules is the answer for our family. Our household does not do great with a bunch of idle time. There is certainly a scheduling balance between being busy and being exhausted and we are feeling our way through this. We can remain busy without overcommitting. However, we had to develop a guide as a family as to what is important and core to our family. Things like faith, family and good friends are in our center circle. These items will take precedence over other items in all decisions that we make.
If we are faced with unexpected challenges in life, we will hold tightly to our center circle. My wife and I now know that it is okay to pull in and ease off the items in the outer circles until things calm down again.