Faith and Life Blog

  I was not the best student of Economics in high school, but there is one principle from the subject that has remained stuck in my head over all these years – the law of diminishing returns. In layman’s terms, this law states that after a certain point, further investment or effort does not increase your output or expected return. It can, in fact, reduce it. In comparison to us as humans, when you spent time engaged in a task, you are expending effort. After a while, you get tired. The natural thing is to take a break, however, maybe because of a pressing deadline or some other factor, you continue to push, tired as you are. The more tired you become, the less you concentrate. You lose focus and so the quality of the output is less than desired. The law of diminishing returns set in and so the extra time spent after reaching your peak were wasted as you failed to achieve your intended target. Simply put, the more tired you are, the less you produce. The solution? Take a break.

  Many of us struggle to slow down and take time out for ourselves in today's fast-paced world. With the never-ending demands of family, career, church and community involvement we end up exhausted, as walking zombies. The busyness starts as soon as we wake up and before we know it the day is over. It seems that  there needs to be more hours in the day to do all the tasks we have to do. The day ends we go to bed and repeat the cycle the next day. Is that the ideal way to live? Certainly not. In all the busyness of life, we must remember to stop and take time for ourselves.  I am reminded of the words of a chorus which says that our body is the temple of God and needs the greatest care.  As such, we care for it to the best of our ability. We must take proper care of ourselves so that we can be in the best place to take care of others. You can't pour from an empty cup therefore it is your duty to be at your best so that you can be a blessing to others.  When you board an aeroplan