What do you think about when you hear the word margin? Here are some questions to start the conversation. Is your schedule overloaded? Are you always busy? Is your family slipping away? Are you stressed out all the time?

Check out some of these statistics for people living in the United States (US):

• In 1960, only 20 percent of mothers worked. Today, 70 percent of American children live in households where all adults are employed. This is according to the Center for American Progress on work-life balance.
• The US is the only country without a national paid parental leave benefit.
• In the US, >80% of males and >66% of females work more than 40 hours per week.
• The average productivity per American worker has increased 400% since 1950 according to data from the US Bureau Of Labor Statistics. Someone is profiting and it’s not the average employee in the US.

I could keep going, but I think you get the point. We are a society that is stretched to the limit, chronically rushed and just flat out exhausted. We are suffering the consequences and so are our families!

We are somehow convinced that we need more activity in our lives, we need to work more to get ahead, we need more stuff and that technology will build better relationships. We have bought into a lie!

We have exceeded so many of our limits in life! Emotional, relational, personal, physical and financial — we have arrived a point where we have no margin in out lives and the crash is imminent!

We need margin in our life. We need to relax, to unplug and we need time to enjoy life’s moments. [Tweet that]

Let this series on “How To Build Margin Into Your Life” be your first step in discovering how you can start building these buffers into your life today!

• Warning: Striving Is A Cultural Lie! 
• How Ice Fishing Exposed The Need For More Margin In My Life
• What Redlining And The Sabbath Can Teach Us About Faith
• How To Take Charge Of Your Life With Simple Math