Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives

5 Responses to “Margin: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial, and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives”

1. J. SCHUSTER says:

   September 10, 2010 at 10:32 pm

   Sorry to say, Dr. Swenson has not written about anything new and offers no new solutions for fully loaded lives. Some of it is common sense in what to do and it is all about choices. I also was very disturbed that he came across that people can just quit things lacking suffering momentously. As a doctor I am sure it was simpler for him. This ideal world of farming in the third world is not all fantastic either. He seems to reflect that you can work part of the time and then leisure. Farmers have no leisure. They work or they don’t eat and it is a 24 hour a day profession. I also don’t see any solutions for single parents that have to work 2-3 jobs to make ends meet and tend to their children’s needs. It is a pretty upper class perspective on life and needs. He offers no solutions to these perspectives. I also establish the book very negative in the respect that perhaps we shouldn’t want so much and we could do more lacking. I don’t worship a God that thinks that way. The God I know and like wants us to prosper (not be greedy) but expect excellent things in our lives because we are his children. I saw none of that in his book.
   Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
2. M. Lerch says:

   September 10, 2010 at 10:58 pm

   I was drawn into purchasing this book through the hyperbolic five star reviews of others. I can only marvel if they are the leader’s friends, or better yet, “where’s the beef?” The existing reviews talk about how life changing the book is but are slim on content.

   I’ll comment here about Section 2, regarded as the most useful part of the book – the part where we’re told how to get margin back in our life. The areas where we need margin are categorized as emotional, physical, financial, time and so on. To restore emotional margin, the leader suggests getting a pet, having hope, building relationships, and growing in faith, hope and like, among additional things. Nothing planet shattering here; the same can be establish on any self-help website. To restore financial margin, one must live not more than their means. A revelation! To restore physical margin, eat well, exercise regularly, and try to get sound sleep.

   Are you getting the thought yet? This book is full of recycled platitudes – homespun wisdom which has evidently fallen into disuse, because it takes works like this to remind us “of what really matters in life.” I have more confidence in people than the leader: I take place to judge that the vast majority of people realize that if they don’t have enough time in the day to do things, they are reasonably capable of turning off the television and getting the things done which need done. They certainly doesn’t need to drop the coinage on this book to realize that is the cure.

   Sorry 5 star reviewers, I guess I didn’t need the Kool-Aid. I was raised with enough common sense to know all this stuff already. I’m pretty disappointed with the total lack of anything novel in this book. I haven’t establish anything my grandmother probably hasn’t told me somewhere along in life.

   Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
3. Louisa says:

   September 11, 2010 at 1:35 am

   Dr. swenson diagnoses of the effects of equipment and busy lifstyles that mark our culture today.His presciption for a better life through
   
   margin in key areas of living was practical and very doable.
   
   If our culture would respond to his advise, this would be a better world and certainly more pleased families and children.
   
   JUST DO IT!
   
   ps I preferred the book to the tapes.
   
   The voice was too low of energy to inspire change.
   Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5
4. Repentant Centurion says:

   September 11, 2010 at 3:45 am

   Overall, this book is an simple to read discussion on the problems many people face in today’s society. He makes it clear that regardless of personality, upbringing, or status, all people suffer from stress in life; it just may be different for each person and have different symptoms in each. The leader is very clear up front with his thoughts of how “our faults demand a glaring prominence of their own” despite the perceived wonders of progress. Dr. Swenson appears to firmly judge that many of the stresses in our lives are self-inflicted by the desire for “material and cognitive status.”
   
   He is also not worried of directing the reader to the Christian understanding of what right wealth and power are as they emanate from God, not from our own feeble efforts. This is demonstrated well in quoting William Wilberforce’s statement “Above all, measure your progress by your experience of the like of God and its exercise before men.”
   
   Where Dr. Swenson really shines is his prescriptions for restoration of emotional energy, physical energy, time, and finances. As a replacement for of providing the reader with a range of solutions only an literary could tell to, Dr. Swenson gives prescriptions that take up our common problems and are easily implementable.
   
   Again, Dr. Swenson is not worried to bring his Christian faith into the mix of solutions. He even goes to the point of humorously asking whether Jesus might have used a pocket calendar to illustrate how “God never proposed for time to oppress us, dictating our every go.” These Christian ideals also make their way through the leader’s discussions on the additional aspects of emotional energy and finances. For example, in one of his stronger statements, the leader emphasizes, “wealth is not a primary objective of the spiritual life.”
   
   Although the book provides a wealth of information and warning on lack of margins and the benefits of having them in all aspects of our lives, there is small discussion of how these thoughts can play out in a life of pastor or his work. This is not to say there are no relations to ministry as the concepts themselves would seem to be very applicable regardless of the situation; but, there does not seem to be a concerted effort to tie these concepts to areas in ministry. Further discussion would need to be had in connecting the many beneficial notions Dr. Swenson presents beyond the individual to a larger entity such as a church body or evangelistic ministry.

   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5
5. Stella L. Kalman says:

   September 11, 2010 at 6:12 am

   Thanks for this product. It was just what I wanted and in fantastic shape and timely manner
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5