I’d love to see your bookshelves, Jean, since we tend to have the same taste, plus our similar bent toward contemplative practices. Too bad we don’t live closer!

I haven’t read that one; I need to add it to my list. I’ve heard him refer to that concept though in his sermons and it sounds excellent.

Good point–sometimes our fatigue naturally weeds out the unessential. And it works in reverse too: weeding out the unessential can help reduce our fatigue. Love your last statement about deciding what’s worth doing…

That’s a great differentiation to make, Ceil: we can have great goals, but it’s not enough if we don’t make them concrete.

You’re also right that too often we don’t realize the need to protect them, not only from bad things (although that, too), but just from busy things.

Thank you for telling us about this great title!
Ceil

You make a good point too, Kim. It reminds me of the advice “Do your best!”, which to some people is needed to up their quality of work, but to perfectionists, better advice might be the opposite: “Doing something imperfectly is still worth doing.” (if that makes sense)

Your second paragraph captures the author’s intent: to not overfill your life with things that don’t matter to you, thus leaving no space for things that do. Breathing room and margin are definitely items he encourages. Like you said, without that, we have no open areas for following unknown paths, which often lead to some of life’s richest treasures! I’m glad you followed such a path. Stepping out in faith is never easy….

I appreciate hearing contrarian views, Andrew. Those make us think. 🙂

I definitely see what you’re saying and agree–I don’t know how the author would respond, but I’m guessing he’d say that having an open mind for new and unexpected things would qualify as one of our “essentials.” ? There have been lots of things in my own life that I’ve just kind of stumbled into, that ended up proving valuable. Definitely God’s grace. I want to keep a wide margin open for that. Thanks for sharing.