Loving is not very efficient
I have been thinking a lot lately about two concepts that I've decided are opposites - "relationship" (as in, being in relationship with others) and "efficiency." Those would seem to be unrelated, but they're not.
What started me down this road was my own hypocrisy. For example, I like that fact the we belong to a small church. A bigger church could perhaps "do more" in terms of outreach and "mission," but a small church is all about relationships, not big actions. People, not programs. And I love that the charities we support are all "inefficient" in that they are about relationships with others, and that we can name people directly affected by our giving.
But then in other arenas in my life I demand efficiency. I rail about those who will do scumbag things at their job and hide behind it being "just business." I don't think you can or should check your morals at the door when you clock in. Yet I too act differently there. Not in a "Let me rip you off in the name of capitalism" way, but more with impatience with others, especially those who I think aren't being very efficient.
We Americans are raised to believe in efficiency, that it serves the greater good. It is the ultimate offering to the god of utilitarianism. But life isn't about efficiency. It's about relationships. I need to keep that in mind every day, looking past "There's a better way to do that, why can't they see that?" and instead thinking, "There's a human being working the best they can, why can't I see that?"
4 comments:
Agreed - there is no reason to check our humanity at the door when we go to work, although it often appears that many believe we have to do just that.
But an excess of emotion, an overreaction, a rush to judgment can really impact progress. Relationships imply emotions, and emotions can get very messy. It doesn't seem unreasonable to ask that people at work retain a "professional" attitude with less emotion and more fact-based two-way communication. The same is true in any organization.
Lynn,
I would agree, to a point. But in some sense I am also starting to see that expecting people to "restrict their emotions" is basically asking "Please don't be human." Especially when it is around something where there may be ongoing reasons to have emotions about it. That's hard for this INTJ to admit, but there are some things in life that deserve deep-felt emotions. I probably shouldn't expand much further than that in public. :)
This is a refreshing conversation. Most of my professional life as a woman in a technical profession dominated by men, I have worked to restrain emotion since it seemed to cause a high degree of discomfort. But that in turn meant that I had to have quite a different persona at work; I couldn't really be me. Will there come a day when I can be real?
Lynn,
I don't know. Because I don't know if there will ever be a day when I can be real, either. At least, not at work.
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