- Let’s be honest – we will need to loosen our grasp on efficiency. Efficiency is often what drives us to remove all margin from our lives. To fill every moment. It is especially hard on our relationships.
- “Efficiency is the “how” of life: how we meet and handle the demands of daily living, how we survive, grow, and create, how we deal with stress, how effective we are in our functional roles and activities. In contrast, love is the “why” of life: why we are functioning at all, what we want to be efficient for… Love should come first; it should be the beginning of and the reason for everything. Efficiency should be “how” love expresses its “why.” But it gets mixed up so easily. When I was a young parent, I wanted to take care of my children (efficiency) because I cared so much for them (love). But I soon became preoccupied with efficiency. What were my kids eating? Were they getting enough sleep? Would we be on time for the car pool? My concerns about efficiency began to eclipse the love they were meant to serve. Getting to the carpool on time became more important than attending to a small fear or a hurt feeling. Too often the report card – the preeminent symbol of childhood efficiency – was more significant than the hopes and fears of the little one who brought it home. It happens to all of us” (Gerald G. May, The Awakened Heart (San Francisco: HarperOne, 1993), 3-4).
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