Should everyone be productive?

Question

Do you think everyone has to be productive in order to be considered worthy and worth while? So many people judge others by what they DO, by their job or what ever else it is they may do. If you are not working or contributing to society are you a waste of space?

Answer 1

This is all too obvious to think that if someone in not an active participant in life, through a work for instance, then that person is not positively contributing to the society, and also to the wellbeing of his own self. But this I do not find very accommodating and assuring, or adequate, to say that that someone is merely a ‘waste of space’. I believe in human ability as well as I do in human potential, in the capacity that all people have by nature. It could be just that certain abilities have not been developed to match certain capacities. May right time, right opportunity, or a chance, has not taken place; a right sense, right concern or right attitude has not been developed. There could be many things. It is only human for instance to take care of the unfortunate and invalid. We cannot say that all people who might never get well are merely using up our resources without being productive, or useful, in return.

I believe it is naturally attributive to life to be caring, as well as being generous towards instances of severe deficiencies, wants and deprivation. To have faith in life is to be least judgmental beyond its reasons.

Then there is another aspect to the issue. I think when people seek actively participation in life with an ambition to succeed, to improve and benefit they formulate their purposes comprehensively so that they are most visible and understandable both to themselves and to the ones who they seek for cooperation and support. Long as people live within their precise purposes they remain safe and strong, but when they lose their sense of purpose they pale into relative insignificance. Then they are more likely to be consumed by the purposes of other people; they become accessory to the stronger purposes around them.

It in fact is people the mostly make up the contents of one life, and that life then learns to make good use of people who remain purposeless, or aimless. Life uses all people. None is left to go to waste. The purposeful are used directly and the purposeless through the purposes of other people. But when people break through the doldrums regions of inactiveness and lean to make a good use of themselves and therefore of their lives they standout once again and begin to shine.

Answer 2

From social point of view, yes. Prosperity of the nation is dependent on creative activity of its citizens..

More importantly, any activity is demonstration of life itself. If a living thing does not involve itself in some kind of creative activity, then this creatures life is wasted.

In my opinion, even creative and active people working for repressive political system are better off being "useless". Stalin and Hitler had many very active and worthy people working for them and what good did it do for human race?

A free will is manifested by the choice of individual activity. For certain reasons even genius could be forced into lethargy.