There’s a photo of my mother with my sister and me when we were just kids.
Bright eyes. Big smiles. Chiclet teeth. No idea what adulthood would ask of us.

As I grew older, my mother would often say,
“You can’t burn the candle at both ends.”

At the time, I didn’t understand.
I had watched her work long hours, push through exhaustion, and carry responsibility without complaint. Efficiency wasn’t optional. It was survival. And somewhere along the way, I adopted that same model.

I’ve always been wired to Get Stuff Done.

Books written.
Web clients served.
Projects launched.
Ideas executed.

But life keeps reminding me that efficiency and wisdom are not the same thing.

Recently, I was faced again with that lesson.

A friend passed away unexpectedly after a brief battle with cancer. In my grief, I wrote and shared something publicly to honor him. I wasn’t thinking about timing or coordination. I was thinking about loss. About honoring a life. About expressing what I felt before it slipped away.

But my action hurt someone else.

Another friend felt I had overstepped — that I should have called first, coordinated, slowed down. And whether or not my intention was pure, impact matters.

So at 4 AM, I sent an apology.

Not to defend.
Not to justify.
Just to own it.

But later I wondered — was that enough?
Was an email efficient… or was a phone call needed?
Did I default again to speed over connection?

That little boy in the photo didn’t know he’d spend decades learning this same lesson in different forms.

This tension between efficiency and empathy has shown up again and again in my life — in relationships, in parenting, in leadership, in friendship. It echoes through books like The Distance We Didn’t See, Open Hands, When I’m Gone, and even Stillness in the Storm. Different stories. Same lesson.

You can get a lot done.
And still miss something important.

Burning both ends doesn’t just exhaust you.
It can scorch the people around you.

The older I get, the more I realize:
Alignment matters more than output.
Presence matters more than pace.
Connection matters more than control.

The lesson isn’t to stop achieving.
It’s to expand capacity without shrinking compassion.

And maybe that’s what my mother was trying to teach me all along.

As for the Chiclet teeth?

I think that kid was doing the best he could.

Still am.