50 hours + 1

Productive. What is your perspective on this term?

A friend brought up a question today, "Why must our society put in 50 hours of work week (referring particularly to the Asian society) to be deemed productive?"

While I think there is a movement looking into balance between efficiency and effectiveness, it's undeniable that when you don't put in that expected 50 hours, the idea is that you have not been productive enough and that idea could be implied from the society, or even you yourself.

So what is considered productive? More hours doing something, whatever something is? Or doing something that seems like something to other people? Or outcomes, yea, what about using outcomes as a measure - more tangible outcomes, more productive?

Danielle LaPorte mentioned here about the divinity of procrastination in a hyperproductive society. While I think procrastination is more misused that not, I like how she termed us a hyperproductive society. Brene Brown conceptualized this as part of the scarce culture of our society, of a never-enough society, of a society always striving for imperfection.

In this you-can-never-do-enough society, it's hard to feel enough, ever if at all. Even trying to be enough is a freaking race of its own. I like how a friend quoted here that we are approval junkies, that try as we may, we will consider what others think of us. That if we are supposed to put in 50 damn hours, we will put in 50 damn hours + 1 so we don't feel like an outcast.

Okay, maybe not approval junkies. But taking a social constructionism point of view, in which the basis of our reality is formed by interwoven influences of our relationship with people, our history, the society's influenced, one-man-island concept is seriously not working here.

Why did I write about this? Because I'm trying to grasp my sense of being productive. In a society where bottom line counts, how do you tell the world, and your conscience that experiences are as worth it as the dollar per hour? How does one "justify" the "value" of travelling to different countries, writing articles, connecting with people, making gifts as being productive equivalent to a 9 - 5 job or extrapolating it so it creates value to get a job?

And I find the most difficult part not justifying to people, but to myself. To allow myself to be enough, by just making the most out of my moments without needing to feel that I should be putting in hours so it will give me money in the future. Then I wonder, is there a need for justification?

So how do you grasp your idea of productivity? How do you determine when, how is enough?

To embrace seasons, to being and just be.