But you want a sentient being to share your meals with, and to lay their head on the pillow next to you at night. It’s the judgment that recognizes you don’t want to spend the second half of your life apologizing for what you did during the first half. Just remember: you get to decide what matters, and you get to decide how to organize your life around it. Thich Nhat Hanh tells the story of a rider on a horse galloping madly across a field. When someone says, “Hey, where are you going so fast?” the rider responds, “I don’t know: ask the horse.”

You don’t want to be that guy.

Source: Be Excellent, Not Efficient

Second, connect the social change you want to see with the life you want to live. Alice Waters wasn’t motivated by her anger at a system. She was inspired by her love for a form of life: namely, how we eat and talk together. The great Jesuit philosopher John Courtney Murray had a word for that: civilization. Turns out the simple things can be quite profound. David Brooks calls this the “Some people find a better way to live, and other people follow,” approach to social change.

Source: Be Excellent, Not Efficient

Third, focus on the excellence that is the fruit of hard work. Be skeptical of people who help you make excuses or encourage a sense of entitlement. Whenever you are faced with the choice between doing more things in a mediocre way, and doing fewer things in an excellent way, choose excellence. When Alice Waters returned from France, her instinct was not to convince fast food places to put better pickles in their burgers. It was to start a single restaurant that mastered a particular cuisine. There is no substitute for being good at what you do.

Source: Be Excellent, Not Efficient

But the original motivation was never about the honors or the recognition. It was about a commitment to the craft of cooking, and the joy of taking care of others. It was about the profound sense of satisfaction you feel when making a perfect omelet, and an honest living from your craft, and a gift that brings joy to others.

Source: Be Excellent, Not Efficient

I tell you these stories because when I watch chefs or musicians or any human being do their work with ihsan—sacred excellence—and direct it towards the elevation of other human beings, it inspires me to improve at my craft, to do my work with ihsan, to be as useful as I can to the people around me.

Humans inspiring other humans to elevate. Maybe the robots can do that, but I don’t think so. And even if they could, I’m not sure I’d want them to. There is something very human about making our own food, and our own music, and our own inspiration. This is the essence of our condition. It is what we were made for. It is what makes us precious to one another.

It makes me think of the wisdom of the Roman philosopher Seneca. I will leave you with his words: “While we live, while we are among human beings, let us cultivate our humanity.”

Source: Be Excellent, Not Efficient

Once in a while you chance across writing that truly moves you. It resonates likely because you’ve been thinking similar thoughts and yet they manage to put it in words that felt perfect. Words that are familiar, yet profound. Words that are banal but together, profound.

I was moved by this post by Eboo Patel. It’s a neat book end to the post that I wrote to honor the craft. I highly recommend reading the whole post.