Are we lazy or just efficient?
If you look inside a beehive you’ll notice row and row of almost identical hexagons. It could be because the hexagon is a robust structure, but there’s something more than that at play. Nature is always trying to use the least amount of energy.
The Canadian Honey Council has calculated that the wax that is used to create the hive is so labor intensive that the bees have to fly 50,000 miles just to produce one pound of wax. And hexagons require considerably less wax than the squares or equilateral triangles which would also be robust but need even more miles of effort.
And what about us humans? We too can design systems for efficiency.
An author gave the example of a hotel room in Holbox Island, Mexico, compared to one in Houston, Texas:
In Houston there were two bottles of water waiting. The next day they got two more. Their entire stay in the US was about ten days in all…20 bottles of water. When they got to Mexico, there were two glass bottles of water in the room with instructions to get any additional water from a central water dispenser, just outside the room. In Houston, 20 bottles of water, whereas in Mexico they used only two.
Just a central water dispenser and an instructional note made a significant difference to this environmentally aware couple.
A simple matter of design can change systems and habits. Some thoughtfulness can make changes in our behaviors and our systems easy.
It doesn’t always take grit, willpower and perserverance to change. Just some thought might be enough to do it!
And we all know some things we need to change.
So…I wonder what I can do? What we can do?
It’s certainly worth giving some thought to, don’t you think?