Every now and then, things line up and I come across different internet posts that deal with the topics mentioned in this site’s title: space and time.

Seth Godin recently shared his thoughts on the difference between a boundary and a limit.  (It’s always interesting to see where people draw lines with similar concepts.)  Godin asserts that the two concepts “serve different purposes.”  He writes:

Boundaries can give us room to innovate and thrive. Budgets, schedules and specifications all exist to show us where the safe areas are.  Sure, go to the edges and challenge the boundaries, that’s why they’re there.

But limits aren’t boundaries. Limits are the end, the danger zone, the thing to avoid.

I like the distinction.  “Limit” has a bite to it that “boundary” doesn’t.  The potentially frustrating thing is when communication is lacking and boundaries and limits are blurred and you are punished for pushing a limit that you thought was a boundary.  It would be an interesting thought exercise for those in leadership to think through the distinction in concrete ways.

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In his June 16, 2024 “Notebook” entry titled “Having Time,” Bishop Erik Varden shared a quote from Mother Maria Gysi about time:

Time is so little connected with actual work. It is something quite different, I believe. It is the absence, or relative absence, of pressure on the mind.’

Varden agrees, saying that “the secret is to learn to resist the pressure, or to let it, I suppose, just pass through one.”

I like the thought.  Because it really is the “pressure on the mind” that you feel that makes the work work.  I suppose things done as a result of procrastination are good pictures of this.  To be able to work without that pressure may be a rare gift.