Margin: Restoring Emotional, physical, Financial and Time Reserves to overloaded lives By Richard A. Swenson

In the 1300s, the dials and hour hand were added to the clock. “Here was man’s declaration of independence from the sun, a new proof of his mastery over himself and his surrounding, only later would it be revealed that he had accomplished his mastery by putting himself under the dominion of a machine with imperious demands all its own”  Daniel Boostin.

When the human discovered they could compartmentalize time, it was a great discovery. What we did not realize at that time, was that this discovery would bear all forms of human ailments and maladies. Humankind never envisioned entering into a race that they had no possibility of winning, a race against time.

As  Plautus, Roman playwright lamented;

The gods confound the man who first found out

How to distinguish time!  comfound him, too,

Who in this place set up a sun-dial,

To cut and hack my days so wretchedly

into small portions.

Man’s days had been cut wretchedly into small portions which seem to be running all the time with no chance of ever catching up. We seem not to have enough portions of time to last us our lifetime. The obsessions with watching how well we use these portions, have led to misery and less enjoyment of our overall given time. We don’t have time to smell the rose, savor nature, see the joy and pain in our loved ones. In the digital era, we are imprisoned by our gadgets which seem to run these small portions of our lives.

The book looks at all these aspects and attempt to give solutions on how to regain the control.