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Showing posts from November, 2015

The Hollowness of Productivity

I am in the phase of my life where much of how I spend my time and energy revolves around my profession.  I am trying to establish my professional reputation and become secure in my career.  So it makes sense that I spend a lot of time thinking about my productivity and my professional effectiveness. But I find something hollow about my own - and many others - obsession with productivity. In almost any professional job - perhaps in any job at all - more work can be done.  The bar can be raised.  Performance can be improved.  Weaknesses can be found and analyzed. But if the only guide we have to our professional lives is efficiency and productivity, we risk burnout, and perhaps even worse, emptiness or hollowness, where work and productivity become an end in themselves, divorced from their impact on other people or the world. I think the center of our work should always be rooted in love.  Love for others, love for institutions, love for knowledge, love for something greater tha