Efficiency vs. Effectiveness

    As I watched my son slowly and methodically poke his fork into the side of his breakfast bagel, I thought it best to suggest a more efficient way. “Would you like to cut it in half with a knife?”

   “No.  This is the way Daddy does it,” was his reply.  
   It took longer, but actually worked well.  Daddy wasn’t there with us at breakfast, so my son must have remembered observing this on a previous occasion.

   A valuable lesson was to be learned this morning.  The bagel was not the issue, nor was the efficiency in dividing it.  The value of this event rested in the fact that my son had been closely watching his father, and when he saw the bagel, his mind was able to recall by association the solution his father had demonstrated.

   If he would have simply cut the bagel in the most efficient manner according to his own or someone else’s estimation, the bagel would have been cut more quickly and eaten sooner.  But he would not have revealed that he cared about his father and desired to emulate his ways.

~ae

“Come and see the works of God, 

Who is awesome in His deeds 
toward the sons of men.”  

~Psalm 66:5