Embracing inefficiency

This is dedicated to those not born with the efficiency gene. If you are gifted this way, please don’t change. The world needs you and I salut you.

I have been contemplating efficiency and inefficiency for a couple of years now.  Somewhere when I was young, I got the message to be quick and efficient.  Maybe it was in school, maybe it was in society.  I never felt pressure in my home to be driven, so it must have been outside of my home.  Somewhere along the line, I made it a deep value and motivation.  Somewhere along the line, it became my taskmaster.  

My first cross cultural experience was in Mexico and I began a thirty year discovery that the rest of the world does not necessarily embrace efficiency or speed for that matter.  Minus Germany.  In fact, when we lived in Uganda, we were neighbors with Germans.  They were immensely kind, generous, efficient, practical and frugal.  Yes, I was regularly put to shame due to not meeting my own internal standards! My friend Stefanie made efficiency look so simple and easy whereas I felt like I was constantly moving backwards!

Sometimes you don’t know what your national “codes” are until they are exposed when visiting other countries or meeting people from other countries. I remember thinking in high school that I didn’t really feel American and I didn’t really identify with American values.  Then, I moved to Hungary for a year and I discovered I was VERY American.  The worst was waiting in a Ukrainian Embassy line trying to get a visa to go and visit the Ukraine.   I can vouch 100 %, Ukrainian visa officials DO NOT value speed or efficiency. Throughout the years, I find my stress level rising in situations of inefficiency like filling out paperwork in other countries or grocery shopping in other countries. This strange desire to just take over and do it the American way starts rearing it’s ugly head!

In the middle of my various cross cultural travels, I got married and had three children.  That basically finished off any hope of being efficient or quick.  Sadly, I still tried for years, and at times would become pretty harsh, demanding, and angry as a result.  I remember being called “agenda woman” by a tour guide in the swamps of Louisiana because I raised my hand and asked what the schedule was since I had to feed my young children and needed to know the plan. Needless to say, in my opinion, all of your stereotypes of deep swamp Louisiana are true and efficiency and speed are not values there either. 

So, I looked up the definition- because why do I associate speed with efficiency?  I wondered about this when I was in Uganda, and I watched the local ladies pack up for a journey, I was constantly amazed at their slow and steady and efficient packing.  The potholes are a force and you must pack well to ensure your goods will arrive in the same condition from whence they left.  Can you be slow and efficient?

TECHNICAL

the ratio of the useful work performed by a machine or in a process to the total energy expended or heat taken in.

 So, yes, you can be slow and efficient.  I like this definition better than my own internal definition of efficiency + speed or getting things done fast. Having small children (or teenagers for that matter) and then living in a cross cultural setting revealed the tension of this internal taskmaster of efficiency, and the frustration that ensues when you are not in control of the rate at which others operate.  I realized that I needed to change my motivation. 

I also need to embrace inefficiency.  I am enjoying taking the opportunities to slow down.  I deliberately still make things from scratch so that I can slow down.  It helps when I meet situations that are inefficient like teenagers who constantly remember things last minute, which then can involve having to make extra trips to the store or library. I also have revolving interruptions and schedule changes with family life. 

I also like the above definition because I keep wrestling with efficiency as a value.  I DO value efficiency and appreciate efficient people in the world. It seems I am at a philosophical crossroad. Like many other areas of my life, there is a certain “undoing” that has occurred in my late 40’s. What I am trying to express is that when I was motivated by a high value of efficiency/speed then I was beginning to really dislike the results. I felt prideful, judgmental and harsh with inefficient people or situations. This was true in my home country and around the world. It began to rule over me rather than serve me. It fed my flaw of impatience. I am trying to re-work my definition as well as to see inefficiency less as a nuisance and more of an opportunity to enjoy a child, a chore, or a person in need of my time. Ugandans are way relational and they never shamed me for not being efficient in their culture and in fact, they took time to help me or listen to me. I learned a lot from them about embracing inefficiency.