The next leg is productivity. Productivity is essential to our material survival, as an outlet for our creativity, for pride in our place in society and as an underpinning for self-esteem. It doesn't matter if we are working for a living in a 9 to 5 job, blazing a career for ourselves in the field of our choice, devoting our lives to a cause or volunteering our time for a worthwhile end, as long as we are involved in some meaningful way with the world outside our families. It is through productivity that we achieve independence and self reliance, that we get the knowledge of making a difference in the world and to the world.
Productive work gives us an outlet for aspects of our selves and our energies that would otherwise remain dormant, whether we be organizers, or managers or artists, or scientists or doctors; whether we entertain or market or test or assemble we are called upon to exercise skills that can only be honed in the marketplaces of our world. And besides, for most of us, without the money we derive from work there'd be literally nothing to put on the table and that would lead to a really unbalanced life.
