Sunday, October 18, 2015

Efficiency

My father's family is Swiss and they came from Switzerland from an area near Zurich to Germany to England and then up the Philadelphia Harbor into Philadelphia around 1725 here in the U.S.

However, the Swiss idea of efficiency stayed true through all these years ever since. I guess Cultures like Swiss and Tibetan and others know if you live in the mountains and you are not efficient then you are only dead before your time. If you live where is snows if you are not very efficient you are soon dead and the only ones alive left are very very efficient.

So, this efficiency that is a part of every Swiss person that survives came across the the U.S. with the 6 brothers who traveled here together in 1725.

By the time I was born I was also taught this "joy of efficiency" which is also a part of those who survive in the United States. It has always been this way here in the U.S. that those who are very efficient survive that those who are not don't always survive, especially in settling the western United States.

However, this love of efficiency of how to get something done the cheapest most efficient way whatever it is (even in having fun) changes a person's life a lot. So, as I moved through my life I noticed it most in how I learned to drive in Los Angeles County in California. I learned that taking short cuts and side streets often could save me hours in driving time, I learned that if I could never to drive at all between the hours of 7am to 9am or 5pm to 7 pm anywhere in the Los Angeles area and to if possible never drive at all on Fridays or Sunday evenings when traffic was bad. As I moved through my life I learned how to be efficient in working and then in owning businesses, I learned how to be efficient in dating and generally in how to survive. I learned where to live where life is better and more efficient and more beautiful (which also leads to more efficiency). And then eventually I learned how to be so efficient that I didn't have to work anymore. In the last year my wife had a knee replacement operation she decided to hire a housekeeper which was efficient too. Then I almost died in a Burst appendix and I had to try to be efficient enough not to die form that. But, the problem also is as you become more and more efficient that eventually there might be nothing at all that you absolutely need to do anymore. And then you might have to figure out what to do with yourself then.

And mostly that is called retirement.

No comments: