What does it mean to be productive?
Do you ever consider the meaning of productivity when it comes to creating your personal wealth?
I am limited greatly in my means of getting wealthy because of my understanding of what it means to be productive. I guess I’m just old fashioned. Not sure what I mean? Read on.
I will never win the lottery.
I don’t buy lottery tickets. The slogan many years ago for a lottery company to induce ticket sales was “imagine the feeling.” They wanted you to imagine how your life would change if you won the multi-million dollar prize. I always thought it would be much more satisfying to imagine the feeling of actually having done something to earn that amount of money.
You may argue that it’s highly unlikely that those buying the tickets would be able to come up with a way to earn the money. I counter that the odds would be at least as good as actually winning the lottery. And the thought and effort put in to being productive would surely have payoffs that throwing money away never would.
No such thing as free lunch.
I will never voluntarily live off the system (e.g. welfare). As long as I am able bodied and able minded I will do all I can to stay away from any attempt at a free ride. I am aware that the idea of a free ride/free lunch is an illusion. Someone always pays. If it’s not me then it is someone else.
Idleness is the exact opposite of productivity. I would have a hard time looking myself in the eye if I knew that I was simply coasting through life by the grace of someone else’s effort. The idea of the free lunch reminds me of a fantastic quote by Claude Frederic Bastiat, a French economist:
Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
I will never steal another’s property.
I understand fully the intellectual output and physical effort required to produce wealth. Seeing another person’s prosperity does not bring out the desire to strip them of that prosperity. It brings out the desire to match the results and the productive ability, which is the cause of those results.
There’s a song called “I’d Love To Change The World.” It was released in the early 1970’s by a group called Ten Years After. A line from the song goes: Tax the rich, feed the poor, Till there are no rich no more. In typical hippie fashion their solution is not in elevating the poor but in destroying the rich.
Spreading wealth around is a commonly propounded solution to help those in financial need. Giving someone money is usually not helpful. If there is no knowledge of how to earn money there is a concurrent lack of knowledge of how to keep money or even spend it wisely, let alone make it grow. I’ve read that roughly one-third of lottery winners find themselves in financial difficulties or even bankrupt within five years of winning. This includes winners who were not in financial difficulties before they won.
Productiveness is key.
The key to money is not having it, it’s having the ability to produce it. And money is the result of creating values, of which money is a representation.
I liken productiveness to the ability to create health. If you have no understanding of the habits of health then being born into a healthy body may not help you live very long. Choosing unhealthy foods, shirking exercise and fresh air, and other poor choices will erode the condition of the healthiest specimen.
But if you understand the habits and choices that lead to health, that maintain health, then you are in a much better position. Even in the event of an illness you will know what to do to get back in the pink.
To be productive.
So I’ve limited my options, in one sense – I’ve always thought that I should earn my wealth. I won’t leave it to blind luck, I won’t coast on a government handout, I won’t steal it from others. Neither will I beg for charity, or utter threats, or commit fraud. I have chosen to be productive.
Being productive, to me, means that I will create more values than I consume. There are millions of ways to create values, so I haven’t really limited myself in the end.
08.05.20 at 21:33
Bravo! what an excellent topic. While I have always dreamed of winning the lottery, you bring up a valid point. When money comes too easy or handed to one on a silver platter it can create a multitude of problems, look at people like Paris Hilton and the likes of who she hangs around with and all the problems that seem to follow her around. I always smile to myself when I see a huge home with a beautifully landscaped yard and in the driveway a well taken care of old Ford Tempo, to me I think those people have money because they earned it and don’t spend it without careful thought. I will also drive down that same block and see a Hummer a BMW and Mercedes in a driveway and think those people are in debt up to there eyeballs. I may be wrong on both account but in my profession I have seen it happen countless times. Great topic Kor
08.05.21 at 19:30
Thanks for stopping in. I agree, some people go to great lengths to appear rich even when they aren’t.
And just to be clear, I may not buy tickets but if someone gives me a ticket that happens to win the lottery I’m all for it.
08.07.23 at 02:46
I strongly agree with you on lotto and welfare. My mum is a hardcore lotto fan and hasn’t won a dime in the 20 years she’s been playing. Of course, she never gives up the futile hope that someday she’ll win big! And welfare, a lot of my friends bludge around on welfare and people always tell me I’m entitled to this welfare too. Fair enough, but due to circumstances and my own beliefs about producing your own wealth with your own hands… I don’t touch welfare. I could easily go get it but I feel it is better if I elevated myself out of my problems by my own effort instead of relying on someone else.
And I always wonder what will happen to the welfare bludgers when suddenly welfare is cutoff or collapses? Another reason as to why it is good to stand on your own two feet and be productive.
08.07.23 at 18:09
Hello Persephone
Thanks for stopping in and leaving a comment.
I like how you say you’d rather “elevate” yourself out of your problems by your own effort. That is exactly the sentiment that will deliver anyone from circumstances which they no longer want to be a part. Problems and unwanted circumstances are a universal condition. It is only by becoming larger than one’s problems, by changing oneself, that circumstances change. In the process we become stronger, more able, and the problems we thought were such a big deal have shrunk in comparison.
Sure people can experience chance (they might win the lotto or someone might come along to save them) but as a strategy it leaves the individual at the mercy of others.
I congratulate you for setting a fine example for your friends and family. By standing on your own two feet when you could just as easily kick back, living off the system, you are making the world a better place.
Cheers.