The inefficiency gain

However, there are some key areas of our world that require the clinical dissection of an efficiency expert’s scalpel.

Anxiety breeds inefficiency and this is plainly obvious when humans take to the sky. Exotic notions of air travel have vanished as terrorist attacks remain fresh in people’s minds, and society seeks security through process and standardisation. Taking to the sky is now akin to the right of passage for every 18-year-old with a freshly minted identification card. The right of passage involves standing in line for hours to get into the trendy nightclub where the over-zealous bouncer scrutinises your very reason for being while ice-cold bar girls gleam blankly at you with faces full of teeth. And when you finally make it in, where are the beautiful people justified by the exorbitant cover charge? If you have to turn right when you board, you will find them on the 20cm by 20cm flickering screen which captures your stare as time zones blur.

Fear has blanketed efficiency and flying has lost its lustre and glamorous appeal. Our cautious world has confused a desire for security with a "one-size fits all" human filter. Unfortunately, normalising human behaviour remains the fancy of social scientists and the futile regulatory measures are not only inefficient, but they destroy a culture of confidence in humanity.

Progress and innovation drive the world to a happier existence but consideration must be given when approaching the lasting value of this progress. Saving time, money and effort should not come at the expense of the bedlam that separates our life from a scripted world of efficiency.

So on the return home, I whistle happily as I watch a frantic commuter dash for the train, whose late arrival was already factored in, but then thwarted by the human knot of three-way foot traffic. I smile as the keyboard-weary simply close their eyes and shuffle forward - blindly praying to eventually emerge, unscathed, on the other side. And I am proud as the true owners of the street, in frustration, step off the footpath and act like cars, so as to avoid the entire scene.

Sure, we may be able to stand waiting at the lifts a few seconds earlier in the morning and get in the front door a full minute quicker in the evening but we would be deprived of a scene which is messy, inefficient and completely appropriate. Let efficiencies spring from a thriving natural order, where gains are lasting and unexpected.