Well-being & Productivity

Two Diagonal Sets : Approach Duality

It is evident from the diagram that the mentalities fall along two diagonals. Each diagonal defines a set of mentalities that:

• Meet a fundamental need,

  and so

• Provide an essential benefit,

  and

• Serve both the person and their society.

The essences (needs) identified are:

• To generate a worthwhile product
• To stabilize personal well-being

These needs are so central to social life that most people possess a preferred approach from each diagonal.

Generating Productivity

This is the aim of mentalities lying along the diagonal moving from top-left to bottom-right.

This diagonal directs our personal attention and drive outwards towards the social environment.

Energy

• Being Market-centred = directing drive to compete for material rewards.
• Being Cause-centred = directing drive to serve ideals, crusades and reforms.
• Being Perspective-centred = putting drive in the service of learning and the appreciation of diversity.

Effort

• Market success and earning well are not biological givens or some inalienable right; unceasing work and organization is required.
• Causes do not happen to us—they must be assessed, taken up, made part of ourselves and striven for.
• Perspectives that are new and different are not easily assimilated; learning demands proper engagement, inquiries, reading, reflection, discussions and time.

Moving down …

… the diagonal, we see progressive changes including:

• X-axis: increasing practical engagement with societal needs
• Y-axis: increasing loss of focus on self, and acceptance of external impersonal realities

Stabilizing Well-being

This is the aim of mentalities lying along the line moving from bottom left to top right. These support productive efforts by maintaining our morale in the face of set-backs and disappointments.

Fate

These self-preoccupied mentalities are difficult to ignore or neglect entirely because they arise from biological givens.

• Kinship We are all born into families and obligated, if not always devoted, to kin.
• Power We find ourselves subject to control and often domination by others, and naturally wanting to exert influence ourselves.
• Community We cannot completely avoid social groups, requests for cooperation, or the effects on us by a consensus.
• Reality We slowly and painfully learn (although some never do) that a brute reality exists, which is inescapable and cares nothing for our wishes or beliefs.

Renunciation

The potentially dangerous extremes in these mentalities take a negative form:

• Kinship: abandoning all family ties;
• Power: renouncing power, not developing strength, rejecting the use of force entirely;
• Community: being uncooperative, unfair, and insensitive;
• Reality: denying reality.

Moving up …

… the diagonal we see progressive changes including:

• Y-axis: increasingly explicit demands for personal development
• X-axis: increasing efforts to improve society

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• You have probably found a way to get the best of both worlds.

Originally posted: July 2009