Men’s desire for efficiency and the Way there

It seems that the top three virtues in the world of masculine development today are grit, success, and efficiency — with a particular emphasis on the last one, efficiency. For it is not good enough to have grit without success, and success is no longer good enough in and of itself. No, even success must now be refined before it can truly be revered. It must be taken to the next level; it must be made efficient.

This drive for efficiency reveals its uglier side when displayed at scale: big corporations replacing local jobs with outsourced labour, robotic manufacturing, and the cutting of “unnecessary” services altogether. But does this mean efficiency is always a bad thing? Can a Christian man pursue efficiency as an authentic virtue?

How long does it take a man to get ready for work in the morning? How much time does he spend each day eating, commuting, caring for his children, and managing household chores? Can these things be streamlined?

Men who are actively pursuing greater efficiency — either intentionally or subconsciously — often find it easy to identify inefficiencies in their day. And those who live and work with such men know these frustrations well, for they hear them consistently spoken of around the water cooler and the dinner table. Yet it is rare that the named inefficiencies are internal deficiencies such as sloth or incompetence. Rather, they are usually direct complaints about external entities that have interrupted an otherwise perfectly planned process of production by getting in their “way.”

Herein lies the crux of the conversation over efficiency as a virtue. For a man to say that someone has gotten in his “way” — whether that be a slow car on his commute, a jammed printer at the office, or a toddler who has spilled her drink for the third time that day — he must believe that he has a “way” of his own. Such a thought places an emphasis on the “I” at the centre of efficiency.

A number of secular characteristics masquerading as virtue are easy to spot, name, and reject — such as licentiousness, revelry, and deception. Others are masked with intricate detail. Is efficiency evil? No, in and of itself it is not. So is it a virtue then? No, in and of itself it is not. In a world proclaiming the goods of efficiency, how is a man to respond to this lack of clarity?

Since it is not efficiency itself that is in question, we must return once more to the individual man and his daily pursuits. Must a man be as efficient as possible at home, in his preparations for work and his relationships with his children? Should he seek to eradicate everything that impedes his pursuit of complete efficiency — to cut off everything and everyone who gets in his “way”? And what, indeed, is his “way”?

There is only one who truly knows the way we should go — the way and pace we should live each day. That is the one who is the Way. When a man unites himself to the Way, there is no need for anxiety, frustration, or complaint. When a man is united to the Way, he is exactly where he needs to be at all times. He is on the fastest, most efficient route to happiness.

Contrarily, when a man veers from the Way, even in the slightest, he is left to his own devices and is immediately parted from the most efficient road to virtue.

The way the world proposes efficiency is far from a virtue. The side effects — anxiety, frustration, and the constant sense that we must always hurry — make that all the more evident. But if we desire to live virtuously, and if we hope for a life of fulfilment, peace, and joy, then we have but one choice: to surrender the idol we call our “way” and learn what it means to daily attach ourselves to Him who truly is the Way.

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