Life is not efficient

I have always tried to be efficient. I'm very frugal, even miserly! I have few needs -- my kids call me "Gandhi." I keep things in order. My family was always on time to every function. I even had a specific way of dressing in the morning. In the midst of this miserly, practical and efficient way of living I have come to know, and love, Karyn. Karyn has a lot of children who have a lot of needs, which they often take care of themselves. For example, food is provided in the kitchen, and the children may cook and eat whenever they're hungry. All of these people in the kitchen at random times makes for a very inefficient system. The kitchen gets messy very quickly. Food is left out to spoil. Lots of food is wasted -- there always seems to be one slice of cold toast in the toaster. Nobody can keep up with it. The system is so inefficient!

 

I look around at the world and see that all of life is very inefficient. I had an apricot tree that produced every other year, or so. I love apricots fresh-picked ripe off the tree, but they would all come ripe at the same time. I only got a few of them, the rest went to the ants, and lay rotting on the ground under the tree -- so inefficient! There is waste everywhere! Plants make hundreds or thousands of seeds for every one that will grow into another plant. Animals likewise have multiple offspring for every one that will grow up to reproduce.

Even God is not efficient. Of the billions of offspring who are our siblings, only a handful will reach their full potential and go on to Eternal Life. A third were lost before even coming to Earth, and most of those who are born in this world don't choose the Lord to serve Him. Like the millions of seeds that lay dormant and die they will not have Eternal Life. They don't grow. They don't learn. They don't have offspring. This is not as a sperm where millions are trying to reach the one egg and only one of them will get in while the rest are left out. Nor is it like a seed that randomly falls into a plot of ground with good soil and moisture. Nature is filled with seemingly random events, but every child of God can choose not to live, making humans just as inefficient!

Meeting in the middle

With my new family being so inefficient, I have had to look at the other side of the coin. The product of efficiency is to separate people, because people are inefficient. In order to run at peak efficiency the needs of people around you must be avoided. This isn't just true in a family, it is true in business. I worked for a head and neck surgeon who was able to take care of sixty patients in one day (that's three times what I was doing) She explained to me that the way she was able to do this was to not let them speak, don't ask open-ended questions, only "yes-or-no," and don't allow elaboration. I have since found many doctors who work with people in this manner. One study showed that it took an average of six seconds for a doctor to interrupt a patient. This is how efficiency excludes others.

On the other hand, there are those who connect with people. They aren't very efficient, in fact, like my family, they may be downright wasteful. However, they provide more than "food, clothing, and shelter" for others. They provide things like love, comfort, hope, and belonging. It may be more effective to be inefficient!

Nevertheless, while we are in the world we need to take care of things. Everything in the world is constantly degrading and needs to be kept up. There is work to do for "our daily bread," as Adam was told. If we do nothing, we suffer a lack of the things we need. The more efficient we are, the more we will have to take care of our own needs and those of others. I have often thought that there must be some "happy medium" that allows us to both love and be efficient, or an ideal balance between the two.

In discussing this concept with my brother, Chas, he explained that it isn't "meeting in the middle" that brings balance, but rather having the wisdom to know what to manage efficiently, and what to waste. The bottom-line is that the things of the world need to be run efficiently, but people are to be taken care-of.

In the movie Mary Poppins Mr. Banks is a model of efficiency both at work and at home. His song tells his philosophy:

"A British bank is run with precision;

A British home requires nothing less.

Tradition, discipline, and rules must be the tools.

Without them, disorder! catastrophe! in short you have a ghastly mess!"

and

"Tuppins, patiently... invested in the... bank."

Into his perfect world comes Mary Poppins to care for the children. Her songs include:

"Find the fun and, snap! the job's a game!

...For a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

and

"Feed the birds, Tuppins a bag."

Two very different philosophies indeed! One is a man who takes care of things, the other is a woman who takes care of people. In the end, Mr. Banks learns the lesson -- That the bank may need to be efficient, but his home is for taking care of his wife and children. In his job he can be exacting with tradition, discipline and rules, but at home he needs to "go fly a kite!"

 

Wisdom

But, even in the middle of business it is important to keep the people and the efficiency separate. Tools, equipment, and money must be efficiently handled, but people must be allowed to be inefficient. For example, a medical practice must keep efficiency subservient to care. Caring for people requires time. Time is money. Thus, it may be more costly to adequately take care of people, but the extra time and expense are worth the investment. Truly helping people rise up, improve, and change requires that it be done on their time, not ours. Teachers and parents understand this implicitly; not all children will be reading books by the age of six. Growth and development for some may come much later and take a long time. But even so, one part of caring for people is to help them to grow in their ability to see the details needed in caring for things.

Resources and property must be cared-for, but in a different way than people. They must be maintained to exacting standards at all times. "The devil is in the details." John D. Rockefeller was one of the early industrialists in the oil business. He was so orderly and efficient that he was able to keep costs down below his competitors and push them out of business. For example, one day while passing by the packaging plant, he saw a worker using 40 welds on the lids of Oil barrels. John D. asked him use 38 instead, but the man didn't think that would work so they settled on 39. Just one weld per barrel saved thousands of dollars every year.

Wisdom requires that we exclude neither the inefficiencies of caring for life, nor the details of caring for things, but rather to keep them in their proper order. The focus must be efficiency for things and caring for people. Putting these right gave Mr. Rockefeller the ability to direct hundreds of millions of dollars for the benefit of millions of people. His legacy continues to this day.