Ep 593: Are You Addicted to Efficiency?

Dec 4, 2025

This discussion dives into the nuanced relationship between efficiency and giving. It challenges the conventional view of efficiency as merely getting more by giving less. Instead, it offers a fresh perspective: true efficiency can be about giving the most while taking the least. Insights from Vedantic philosophy reveal that fulfillment comes from selfless actions. The conversation encourages practical small changes in daily life, prompting listeners to focus on how they can be most useful to others and choose purpose-driven professions.

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ANECDOTE

Dinner Table Realization In India

James Beshara recounts a dinner at Swami's ashram where he confessed an addiction to efficiency.
That conversation sparked reevaluation of how he pursues optimization in life and work.

INSIGHT

Reframe Efficiency As Giving

Efficiency can be reframed from taking much and giving little to giving much and taking little.
This reorientation transforms efficiency from selfish to fulfilling according to Vedantic ideas.

INSIGHT

Fulfillment Comes From Giving

Major spiritual traditions link fulfillment to giving rather than accumulating.
Surrendering to duty and serving others brings immediate peace, not selfish gain.

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In today’s episode, we explore a profound shift in how we view efficiency—not as a way to get the most and give the least, but as a path to give the most and take the least. Inspired by a powerful conversation at Swami’s dinner table, we reflect on how reorienting our actions around giving, rather than gaining, can lead to deeper peace, alignment, and fulfillment. Through Vedantic wisdom and personal insight, we share how practicing this philosophy—even in the smallest moments—can transform your relationships, work, and inner life.

The Daily Vedantic is a daily podcast and YouTube channel dedicated to the timeless wisdom of the Upanishads (https://thedailyvedantic.com/). Dating back to over 5,000 years ago, the source of nearly all Eastern Philosophy, and loved by Western giants from Emerson to Thoreau to Carl Jung and Alan Watts, studied daily by Joseph Campbell to Aldous Huxley to Arthur Schopenhauer and countless others, The Daily Vedantic aims to make this ancient philosophy as modern and accessible as it is simple, practical — and profound.

James Beshara is a creator (Magic Mind, Apt, Tilt, acquired by Airbnb), podcaster (Yoga For Your Intellect, The Daily Vedantic), angel investor in over 150 companies (Gusto, Mercury, OpenAI), musician (openstate_), and encourager living in Malibu, California with his wife, 3 young daughters, their dachshund named Wendell, and their hamster named Smokey.

James also co-hosts Yoga For Your Intellect (https://www.YFYI.co), a biweekly long-form conversational podcast with his teacher Joseph Emmett ( https://www.instagram.com/yogaforyourintellect )

James is a student of Swami Parthasarathy, the acclaimed author of Vedanta Treatise (Vedanta Treatise – The Eternities) and teacher at Vedanta Academy in Malavli, India. As James says often, when you’re ready for the real thing, Swami’s daily lectures are where the true wisdom and systematic discovery of the world’s oldest continually studied philosophy resides: https://www.vedantaworld.org