Living a Full Life

Does a full schedule mean a full (a.k.a good) life?

If the not, the question becomes what is the relationship between a full schedule and a full life? Or, why do we try to fit so much into our schedules?

If the calendar is to time what a budget is to money, how should you budget your time? How should you spend the 24 hours per day, the seven days you have each week, and 365 days you’ve been given each year?

Should you fill it with work, amusement, distraction, leisure? And in what proportions or degrees?

It’s not a matter of if you will have time but what you will spend it on. Like a page without white space or a room without empty space, a calendar cluttered and stuffed with activity does not render a full life, a flourishing life, a good life.

Closely related to this is considering whose calendar we should submit to. Maybe this the best place to start. We are to render to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to the Lord what is the Lord’s. So who owns time? What does submission to a secular calendar look like? The church calendar? What do each of these calendars teach us about those things which make for a full life?

This is also a question we need to ask about other areas of our life as well.

What about social media? Does the fact that there are numerous social media platforms (with new ones popping up each week) on which to be “present” mean we lack or forfeit some aspect of our being by not being “present?” While some marketers may say, yes, we do, at least in a branding sense, most of us would answer in the negative–at least academically. However, a general survey of our practices might suggest otherwise. It might suggest we equate being with attention.

And, what about education? Like the calendar, it is not a matter of if a student will be educated. It’s a matter of who will educate them, what kind of education will they receive, and to what degree they will be educated?

One hint that will serve each of these areas of life is that opportunity does not equal obligation.

A full life is not measured in quantity but in the quality of our living. We can’t do everything so we must choose the best things. We cannot serve God and mammon but as Dylan reminds us, you’ve gotta serve somebody. We cannot read every book so we must choose the best books. Government education may be free and convenient (opportunity) but that doesn’t mean it’s good (does not equal obligation).

A final thought: before we start making all those, usually futile, New Year’s resolutions perhaps it would be better to answer the question, “What is the good (a.k.a full) life?”