I’ve worshipped for a long time at the altar of efficiency.
It’s a tool that served me well, but the moments I’ve left open and unknown make up some of my favorite, strangest memories.
When I lived and worked from home in NYC, and even on more recent visits (until last summer when I last addressed this topic), it felt crucial that those rare days when I would leave the apartment were packed full, dovetailed, optimized: seeing all the people I wanted to, running all the errands I could, never doubling over territory I could have covered once. Should have covered once.
Burning down should/shouldn’t doesn’t have to include throwing some of our best tools on the fire. My relationship to efficiency has gotten me into school and out early, through theater productions and leadership, and into this wonderful business that I love so much. It’s gotten me out of toxic situations and helped me survive sojourns in unhealthy environments. It’s enabled me to slice through when my intuition is boggy, and fly up when my phoenix is reborn.
But it is not my only tool, and my INefficiency is very rusty.
Last week I went to the coast. I needed ocean, and I didn’t care if I drove for five hours to spend 15 minutes smelling salt air and dipping my toes in the bracing Atlantic. I thought, “Well, Connecticut’s beaches are closer,” but I wanted OCEAN, not the Long Island Sound. So I got in the car and drove, praying (offerings included) that I could just dance through the threat of thunderstorms, which I did.
It was a peaceful day. It was invigorating in a low and slow way. It was bracing and unusual and yet extremely familiar. Even in those moments when I thought, “I really ought to take advantage of the opportunity to sit on a deck with fries and a drink,” I realized, “I actually would rather eat McDonald’s on the pike,” (a long-nostalgic activity), so I did that.
I could say a lot more about how my current sense of groundedness in my home feeds my liberation to fall into inefficiency like this. Another time. For now, here’s to a summer of glorious inefficiency.
from New Moon Newsletter No. 16
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