Marginless

I've missed living a marginal life lately.

No, wait. That means something different entirely.

Lately, I've been living without margin. More accurately, my life has filled the margin that I left. Not receiving a paycheck has eaten into my financial margin. Some caretaking at home has consumed any time and energy margin I had. And that's added up to reduce my emotional margin.

Without margin, it's harder to get through a day, let alone get through it well. When a morning with an hour's margin set aside for relaxation and methodical preparation for later activities becomes urgent last-minute errands and a just-barely-late arrival for the later activities, I arrive unfocused. I'm not fully there.

More margin isn't the answer. Even if I had decided to wake up an hour earlier this morning, the last-minute errands would still have come up at the same time. Too much margin leads to boredom and fear of committing to activities. That's just as destructive as no margin.

There doesn't have to be an answer. Yesterday and today, I have lived at the edge of the margin I gave myself. I know I can't sustain that. But having that margin has been exactly what I needed, with absolutely nothing to spare. That's what it's there for. Margin is enjoyable and comforting when things go according to plan, but it exists for those times when the best laid plans go astray.

And so I have made plans for tomorrow, hoping to accomplish all kinds of things. But whether my plans survive their encounter with reality, I am going to try to live a deliberate, significant, decidedly non-marginal life tomorrow.