Rabbi Yehoshua related how he encountered a child sitting at a fork in the road and asked him for directions to the city. The child answered: "This path is short but long, and the other path is long but short." Rabbi Yehoshua took the shorter route, and soon was at the outskirts of the city. However, there was no access to the city because the properties were all fenced in. He retraced his steps and said to the child, "You told me this was the shorter path."

The child responded, "It is, but I also told you it was the longer one. You had to retrace your steps and take the other path."

We constantly look for shortcuts. We may be so impressed with a shortcut that we fail to check whether it is really the best way. It has been said that, "A shortcut is often the fastest way to get somewhere that you do not wish to be."

Our culture is obsessed with speed. Doing something faster has a value of its own. A potato baked in a microwave oven for five minutes does not taste as good as one baked in a standard oven for an hour. Yet we may sacrifice the taste for speed. We may eat instant foods, which are of inferior nutritional value, but they are preferred because they are prepared faster. Some people are attracted to an expensive car because it "can go from 0 mph to 60 mph in 6.3 seconds" while the average car can do so in twelve seconds. They may spend an additional $40,000 to save 5.7 seconds!

We take many shortcuts and use many timesaving devices, but we may be surprised to find that we often loose more than we gain.