Why being productive is a myth, and why awareness is the way of living.
Productivity is not what you think.
Productivity is not when you work hard to produce lot of things valued by your boss. Productivity doesn't mean writing more articles, if you're a writer, or doing more paintings if you are an artist. It doesn't mean finding solutions to difficult math problem if you're a mathematician. All these things make sense in a real world to earn credit, recognition and many other things and they do push you towards positive outcomes and brief happiness. However, you will soon be back to your desk just to start another "Productive" task, unless you figure out what productivity means, you will burn your years being "productive". Being productive is a myth that we were taught to believe in.
Pre-requisites for productivity.
Even if you liked or not, even if you knew or did not, at the heart of productivity there is a belief, that life itself is some positive game, where you reach some, imaginary random number. So, we measure our productivity by a positive number. We evaluate lives of Charles Darvin, Leanardo da Vinci and Sir Issac Newton and call them productive lives. It is true what they did greatly changed the course of modern's civilization. However, where are all these productive people now? They all stopped being productive after being dead. From our perspective their lives are productive for "US". From their perspective, their lives stopped being productive after being dead. We can call this phenomena ground Zero of life, or contemplation on death.
So productivity seems to be an illusion when we consider the finite nature of the life, from the perspective of the person. On the other hand, even if we agree there is value of life when one is not dead, the time he or she spend may be productive according to mental value they give to whatever the task they are doing. As human values are human made and only occur in specific human minds at specific times when they are brought into memory, we can give arbitrary values to anything we do.
You can choose to be productive taking a sh..t early in the morning, humming your favorite song, if you give a mental value to it. If you chose to give less mental value to money, you could live a productive day just watching birds looking for worms in your backyard. You can be productive just sweeping the floors, while at home, looking at dust rising off the ground, being illuminated by the golden sunlight. You can be productive thinking about all the books you have read last year, and even reading the newspaper. As you can see, it is very easy to spend a productive day, as long as you choose to be just aware of what you are doing. Children do this all the time. Their days are full of productivity all day along!
Being productive is a myth. Instead, be present.
In life, there are no destinations to reach. It will stop just the way it started, without asking the owner whether it is right time. So, you have no choice on your birth or death. In between these two extremes, there will be a chaotic flow. Can you really call this productive? Whatever imaginary problem you try to solve day in and out I just see this a futile affair. Only productivity, if you really need a label to put somewhere, I will invite you to be aware. That's all we can do to live a happy, fulfilled day.
In this sense following are productive lives.
A driver is productive, if he is aware throughout his driving journey of the day.
A fisherman is productive, if he is aware during his fishing trip, without wondering about the land.
A trader is productive, if he is aware of his body and mind, during a day of trading.
A student is productive, if he is watching films all day but knows what he is doing each and every moment during that time, and does it with a choice.
A grandfather is productive if the stays home due to his painful knee, but just has a brief walk in the garden listening the sound of crickets.
There is no rush, As there is no winner in this life, so walk in your own pace from zero to zero in any route of your choice is "PRODUCTIVE"
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