time and space and humility
I celebrated 12 months of marriage this last weekend weekend with my wife. Every day of marriage is worth celebrating, but hitting this one year mark is something I’m excited to put down in the books. I’ve found someone that makes me want to write every cliché about finding a soul-mate. She puts up with me, encourages me, sets me up for success and keeps me locked on target on a daily basis. In a similar way I’ll be hitting my seven month mark at my new career. In starting both marriage and work there is a required patience and diligence. I’ve learned a great deal from the students I’ve been working with as well as learning to be a student of my own marriage.
Time
The biblical adage that “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil” could also I believe be put together as “the love of time is the root of all kinds of stress”.
A talk I recently gave to my students was centered around stress and time. I gave some of the current stats of the United States health care costs related primarily to stress and it’s effects on the human body(the stats showed immensely high costs related to stress). This only bolstered the point that time is important, immensely important.
In work its clear that we need to spend our time well. Many an hour, two hours or day is wasted in work on those that just “browse” Facebook. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, whatever you pleasure, are all examples of blackhole time-suckers at work. Now I don’t say this to condemn the occasional moment to let your brain breathe at work and to enjoy a few moments in a stressful day, but instead to convict myself of this time-fraud worthy choice. At the end of each week, I always feel as if I could of done more. Now I’m working at a career of which I love, something I try to separate from but often take home with me. So in my spending of time, am I being intentional, knowing that every moment is precious, every word is important and therefore all usage of time should not be taken lightly?
The other side of the coin is I also don’t want to be ruled by time. How much of our presence with other staff, students, family, and friends has been robbed of our true presence because our minds have been off somewhere else? Are you still taking care of work in your mind while you are sitting next to family or friend? Don’t try to convince yourself no one knows, everyone can see when you are disengaged from the world, they may just be used to the idea that your family and friends will only ever get HALF of you, because that’s all you show them they deserve. Are you so worried about your career that you don’t believe that those around you deserve any full amount of time you have? Instead, if we gave our full self and mind to the activities and people that we are actually with, our productivity and depth of relationships would be far beyond what we currently experience.
That leads into time in marriage. Time, marriage and work are the center of many different marital conflicts. This first year of marriage with my wife hasn’t been full of conflict, but it has been full of growth on my part. I’ve realized my tendency to do just what I know to be wrong, I give my wife half my attention, sometimes even less. I look and listen but inside I’m still trying to figure out that problem back at work. Therefore I cheat my wife and give my heart and love to work instead (Choosing to Cheat by Andy Stanley is a great read on this topic).
So I believe the correction adage should be to not “love time” but to “respect time”. Loving time leads to a desperate attempt to work all the time, be ruled by how you spend time and think that you can master time by being absent in all physical situation and mentally fully present to nothing. The answer is to breathe. The answer is to respect time, be a diligent worker where you are present, be wise with how spend your work day, and when you leave, leave everything and know that you are good.
Space
Creativity is a part of every person’s make up. I sincerely believe that we are created as humans to innovate. We are to push the limits of current ideas so as to create new and beautiful things with our own personal mark upon them. Everyone’s creativity looks different, for some it can be expressed in art, for others its forms of hobbies and crafting, and in others its anything from restoring an old car to playing an interactive game.
Fostering and giving space for this creativity is important for both work and marriage. In both, for true success, you must be culturing an atmosphere of creativity so that the marriage and the career may have room to grow.
With my work I have been reminded more and more how better my final products are when I give myself space. When I follow my own process to get a piece of work, that is when I get something truly worthwhile. But when I rush my work, when I forget to be in the right space, my work clearly shows that.
The same goes for marriage. I need to be making sure that I am giving my wife the space she deserves to elicit her creativity.
Am I asking the right questions?
Has she been creating those things dear to her heart?
Is her heart in a place where she can create?
The other half is questioning whether your marriage itself is still creating. Habits are a great thing, but every aspect of life needs to be continually fed its own food to grow and flourish. Our marriages are no different.
We need to be going into the spaces that create intimacy and joy in our marriage. For some this is a weekly date, for some its a yearly trip, and for others it can be much more spontaneous. All that is necessary is to be asking yourself and your spouse, are you still entering those spaces where you look deeply into the heart and soul of your spouse and are creating unique and beautiful moments with them.
Humility
At our wedding, my wife’s grandparents told everyone how they made it to being married for 61 years. His answer, “Let her be the boss”. Her answer, “Let him be the boss”. The crowd loved these sweet and funny answers from this beautifully aged couple and everyone roared with laughter. I’m not seeking to go into a discussion on gender roles within marriage in this article. Instead I’m taking those two simple answers from a couple who has “made it” through marriage and whittling the answers down to the idea of humility.
I want to make it 60 years for my marriage, and 60 good years of working as well. I think what that takes, will take, and is currently taking is large amounts of humility. None of us will ever know everything in the world, few know most of the information in their field, but many people act like they already know all there is to know. Humility is a difficult thing to write about when writing a personal self-help article, because while I prescribe the necessity of it, I want to make sure the article itself is drenched in humility.
I don’t have it all together, there is only one reason I know humility works. I know how difficult life is when I try to function without humility.
When I walk in a teachable spirit at work, I can be reachable by those that are working below me, they can know that I will hear and work with their concerns. The same goes for my superiors, they know that I’m a person that will ask questions and actually be learning and growing from the answers. It’s not a sign of weakness to be a humble person, I believe it is a weakness for the opposite.
The statement the “meek will inherit the earth”, isn’t implying that those who allow everyone to walk all over them will someday rule everyone. We inherit all the joys of life that come with a humble life.
When I apologize to my wife when I have made a mistake.
When I ask her how I can be a better husband.
When I listen and apply what she tells me.
All of these visibly show protection and love to my wife.
So it's true and loving to say, "We both let the other be the boss”.
I know how I made it through this year, it was by grace, love, time, space and humility. But the greatest of these was Love. Love that transcends and gives a taste of what is to come.
In that I am encouraged.