the importance of cartilage

Twenty or so years ago, someone who at that point mattered to me tore his knee cartilage. Emergency road trip to a better-than-local hospital, and emergency surgery to remove bits of torn cartilage, and months of physio later, he returned to his regular job. But his knee was never the same. Without that fluid, forgiving margin of cartilage between his knee bones and his knee cap, the joint just didn't move like it should, and someone who was once quite athletic worried about what movements would hurt. 

I think about that quite-common knee injury regularly these days when I think about how my life - and the lives of many people I observe - seem to lack some sort of cushioning ... some room for release ... some gracious spaciousness in which we can unwind and breath a little and catch back up to ourselves.

View on Amazon

It's somewhat ironic, then, that I got an announcement of three webinars available through my work on precisely this (and other non-profit leader related) topic, and my gut reaction was "looks great, but I don't have time for these." I reconsidered my response though, after a couple more wobbly days and a note from SuperBoss saying "I'm registering for some of these and you might want to as well." If she - who has mountains more responsibility than I - can find the time, surely I can. 

Just to be sure the sessions really would be useful, I looked up a bit more about the presenter, and his book called Margins: Restoring Emotional, Physical, Financial and Time Reserves to Overloaded Lives. Just reading the following except brought tears of relief to my eyes, a) because I'm not the only one and b) because there just might be hope: 

So, I'm registered for parts 1 & 2 of the webinar series. I'm quite excited about them. Optimistic that I can relearn how to maintain margins. And excited about the idea of there being "money left at the end of the month and sanity left at the end of [the day]." (Adolesence is too far gone to be inspiring to me now - ha!) .

I wonder if I could even make time to read the book.