One of the keys to feeling good in life is being productive.
What does it mean by being productive? And being productive in what?
Productivity can be in anything through which you can earn value in people’s eyes. If you are doing something by which you are getting people’s respect and admiration, for whatever reason, then you are being productive at it. The reason is that respect and admiration only come when people perceive value in you. You may or may not be actively serving people.
You may be very skillful at playing video games, but that will likely not get you social recognition, IOW, respect and admiration. But if you have a high educational qualification, chances are much greater that you will be respected by the society. Why? The society sees the latter to be of more value. Again, it depends on how you are using your qualities. If you are in possession of a very reputable degree but aren’t doing anything with it then probably you won’t get as much recognition as you will if by using it you get yourself a high profile job. In short, society as a whole has ideas of what is good and desirable, and certain expectations from an individual. And based on how the individual fares on those expectations, his or her social status is formed.
Any activity that can raise your social status has scope for productivity; that is, you can bring productivity into it. The concept of productivity doesn’t apply to any activity that has no bearing on your social status. Being productive means getting positive results of your actions in terms of social recognition. If you are doing something that you think is great but isn’t going to positively change the way how people perceive you, and thus isn’t raising your social status, you are not being productive.
It’s not as simple as it looks so far though. Here’s the complex part. Sometimes, say, you are doing something great, which is going to get you recognition on a big scale; but the thing is, people will only see it when you are done with your task. Furthermore, since people have no clue of what you are up to while you are engaged in your pursuit, people actually think you are doing nothing and see you as a failure. That actually negatively affects your social status. Is it, then, negative productivity? Well, for the moment, yes. But is it?
So, you see, being productive is not a smooth function. I would say, in cases as those described above, it’s like talking a run-up before a big leap. You actually are going backward for the run-up. It can have negative psychological payoff in form of loss of social status, for sure. But in the long-run the effect will be positive, if you succeeded in the “leap”. So, in such a case if you are not feeling good in life then you have to save your social status by informing people about your position and what you are doing; or if that’s not possible, compensate for it by demonstrating your other qualities in the meantime to project on others your worthiness. Get productive in something.
Another complexity is: whose recognition you care about. The society is formed of all sorts of different people. If you are highly intellectual, but living among dumb people, you will not get recognition even though you may be highly valued in the intellectual class. Say, right now you don’t have reach to the intellectual class of the society. In that case, are you being productive by pursuing your intellect-intensive tasks which no one understands? Seems like not, again. Such complexities are always to remain. You have to find a suitable way out. Most of the times, only for a short while you have to bear the negative payoff, which is called the “struggle period”, before you eventually hit the target. But some times, it may even need a complete reassessment of your plans and priorities. I think it would depend on for how long you can endure the negative payoff. Only you can decide it for yourself.
The point is this: At any moment, the lesser the recognition from others, the worse you will feel in life. That’s a fact of life.
Respect and admiration of the people will weigh in proportion to how those people are valued. There again, valued not necessarily by you respecting them back, but by their powerfulness in affecting your mental states. Losing respect of one person valued, say 50 points, is equivalent a loss to losing respect of ten people valued 5 points.
We all need other people’s acknowledgement of how we are, in order to feel good in life. And it comes through their recognition. The human mind craves it as much as the body craves sex, or even more. Imagine you are alone and no one knows that you exist. I bet you will not feel good in life even if you have every luxury of the world!
Back to productivity. Productivity means (in context of this topic) such results of your actions that elevate you in the eyes of the society.
Whether we like it or not, we are wired with such tendencies. Evolutionarily speaking, getting recognition in one’s community betters one’s survival chances. The “feeling good” there is a psychological incentive for us to act in a way that increases our survival chances. When you are totally out of touch with people, you don’t feel good even if you have everything; that’s also because being left apart from other members of one’s species affects negatively one’s survival chances. These are the mechanisms through which our biology ensures we fulfill the evolutionary goals of the Universe.
Mainstream spirituality teaches how to live without any kind of attachment with the world; with material world as well as people. I think you can totally be non-attached if you try hard enough (I have been there), except that then the life is so dull that it’s hardly appropriate to call it “living”.
Do not disregard the society.
Live, and be productive. And life will feel great.
--
Follow discussion on Google+
What does it mean by being productive? And being productive in what?
Productivity can be in anything through which you can earn value in people’s eyes. If you are doing something by which you are getting people’s respect and admiration, for whatever reason, then you are being productive at it. The reason is that respect and admiration only come when people perceive value in you. You may or may not be actively serving people.
You may be very skillful at playing video games, but that will likely not get you social recognition, IOW, respect and admiration. But if you have a high educational qualification, chances are much greater that you will be respected by the society. Why? The society sees the latter to be of more value. Again, it depends on how you are using your qualities. If you are in possession of a very reputable degree but aren’t doing anything with it then probably you won’t get as much recognition as you will if by using it you get yourself a high profile job. In short, society as a whole has ideas of what is good and desirable, and certain expectations from an individual. And based on how the individual fares on those expectations, his or her social status is formed.
Any activity that can raise your social status has scope for productivity; that is, you can bring productivity into it. The concept of productivity doesn’t apply to any activity that has no bearing on your social status. Being productive means getting positive results of your actions in terms of social recognition. If you are doing something that you think is great but isn’t going to positively change the way how people perceive you, and thus isn’t raising your social status, you are not being productive.
It’s not as simple as it looks so far though. Here’s the complex part. Sometimes, say, you are doing something great, which is going to get you recognition on a big scale; but the thing is, people will only see it when you are done with your task. Furthermore, since people have no clue of what you are up to while you are engaged in your pursuit, people actually think you are doing nothing and see you as a failure. That actually negatively affects your social status. Is it, then, negative productivity? Well, for the moment, yes. But is it?
So, you see, being productive is not a smooth function. I would say, in cases as those described above, it’s like talking a run-up before a big leap. You actually are going backward for the run-up. It can have negative psychological payoff in form of loss of social status, for sure. But in the long-run the effect will be positive, if you succeeded in the “leap”. So, in such a case if you are not feeling good in life then you have to save your social status by informing people about your position and what you are doing; or if that’s not possible, compensate for it by demonstrating your other qualities in the meantime to project on others your worthiness. Get productive in something.
Another complexity is: whose recognition you care about. The society is formed of all sorts of different people. If you are highly intellectual, but living among dumb people, you will not get recognition even though you may be highly valued in the intellectual class. Say, right now you don’t have reach to the intellectual class of the society. In that case, are you being productive by pursuing your intellect-intensive tasks which no one understands? Seems like not, again. Such complexities are always to remain. You have to find a suitable way out. Most of the times, only for a short while you have to bear the negative payoff, which is called the “struggle period”, before you eventually hit the target. But some times, it may even need a complete reassessment of your plans and priorities. I think it would depend on for how long you can endure the negative payoff. Only you can decide it for yourself.
The point is this: At any moment, the lesser the recognition from others, the worse you will feel in life. That’s a fact of life.
Respect and admiration of the people will weigh in proportion to how those people are valued. There again, valued not necessarily by you respecting them back, but by their powerfulness in affecting your mental states. Losing respect of one person valued, say 50 points, is equivalent a loss to losing respect of ten people valued 5 points.
We all need other people’s acknowledgement of how we are, in order to feel good in life. And it comes through their recognition. The human mind craves it as much as the body craves sex, or even more. Imagine you are alone and no one knows that you exist. I bet you will not feel good in life even if you have every luxury of the world!
Back to productivity. Productivity means (in context of this topic) such results of your actions that elevate you in the eyes of the society.
Whether we like it or not, we are wired with such tendencies. Evolutionarily speaking, getting recognition in one’s community betters one’s survival chances. The “feeling good” there is a psychological incentive for us to act in a way that increases our survival chances. When you are totally out of touch with people, you don’t feel good even if you have everything; that’s also because being left apart from other members of one’s species affects negatively one’s survival chances. These are the mechanisms through which our biology ensures we fulfill the evolutionary goals of the Universe.
Mainstream spirituality teaches how to live without any kind of attachment with the world; with material world as well as people. I think you can totally be non-attached if you try hard enough (I have been there), except that then the life is so dull that it’s hardly appropriate to call it “living”.
Do not disregard the society.
Live, and be productive. And life will feel great.
--
Follow discussion on Google+
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