“Good morning,” said the little prince.
“Good morning,” said the merchant.
This was a merchant who sold pills that had been invented to quench thirst. You need only swallow one pill a week and you would feel no need of anything to drink.
“Why are you selling those?” asked the little prince.
“Because they save a tremendous amount of time,” said the merchant.
“Computations have been made by experts. With these pills, you save fifty-three minutes every week.”
“And what do I do with those fifty-three minutes?”
“Anything you like…”
“As for me,” said the little prince to himself, “If I had fifty-three minutes to spend as I liked, I should walk at my leisure toward a spring of fresh water.”
I was reminded of this story of Antoine De Saint-Exupery (from: ‘Le petit prince’) by a patient. It brings to mind the theme from my little blog about inefficient things being more efficient after all.
Many things are so valuable, even if they are inefficient, maybe just because they are inefficient. This is why I often dislike all the bio-hacking and lifestyle hacking advice we get. The whole is often more than the sum of its parts.
We don’t think about a dinner with friends in terms of efficiency, do we? Have you ever played efficiently with your (grand)children. Do you make love with your partner in an efficient way? Was your holiday abroad efficient enough?
These are obvious, because we like the inefficient activity, but sometimes even the less likable inefficient activities can be enjoyable. Things like gardening, cooking, walking and indeed every other form of movement?
“But, I don’t have the time to be inefficient!”
Well, maybe that’s exactly the problem…
Cheers,
Pieter