I keep hearing this phrase, this complaint, from the lips of weary people at the end of a wearying day. Sometimes it even falls out of their mouths in the middle of the day. I even hear myself say it sometimes, and I squirm with the oddity of the comment. Over and over again, it's the same thing in a million different formats: I need to be more productive. I just wasn't that productive today. I don't feel like I'm being productive right now. I wish I was more productive.
What do we mean by this?
I think we mean it literally. We're stuck in a society driven endlessly by the whims of consumerism, where we get sucked in by advertisement after advertisement in a spiral that becomes the worst trap of all, for we find that we must advertise our very selves if we want to survive there. We're familiar with the ideas of capitalism and of factory production. We get that somebody has to "make" what everybody else wants to buy. It seems to be this world, this economic chaos, that we are referencing by the phrase. We feel, in this world, that we need to produce something.
We don't have to be business owners to be battered by this brutal idea. Yes, some people complain about their level of productivity because their livelihood is really on the line; if they don't meet their quota, their business will fail. But, even if it's a bit more indirectly, the rest of us seem to feel this pressure too. We live in the same world, after all. The average person who cries out with this complaint is just as burdened by the demand to "produce." Look at the college student, who must whip out three papers by the end of the week, not forget to meet with that professor, write a speech, study for two exams, be patient with his peers, and still try to sleep. Look at the secretary, who must answer hundreds of emails and phone calls, never complain about her boss's fifth request for coffee, and keep a cheery smile on her face as she greets everyone who walks in the door. Look at the jobless or homeless mother who knows more painfully than most of us that her hungry children long for her to find some way to provide. Look at the despondent artist selling his work on the side of the street, the sticky child asking for a quarter in exchange for some homemade lemonade.
All of us, up and down every street, are burdened with this need to produce something in order to secure life itself. Regardless of how literally we mean the phrase, we feel, when we say it, that our actions on any particular day or at any particular moment really must help us live up to the standard of whatever it is we feel we're supposed to be doing. And, if they don't, we nearly kill ourselves with guilt. I just wasn't productive today. I wish I was more productive.
But I have a question. What if all this is a giant lie?
I mean, sure, we can't actually buy groceries if we don't work. Yeah, we've got to finish that essay by Wednesday. The deadlines might be real, but it's the pressure, the guilt, that seems out of place.
Look at it this way. Even the hardest-working people find great joy in taking a day off from work. They'll take their family to the beach, play in the sand with their kids, dive into a few waves, and order pizza for dinner. And, at the end, what do they say? That was fun. I needed that. I can't wait to do that again.
You know what we don't hear? Aw, man. What a waste. I could have answered 30 emails in the time it took me to build that sandcastle. Forget the pizza; I would have rather had that soggy sandwich from my briefcase. And those waves? Man. Sure wish I had dove into my pile of paperwork instead. I should have been more productive.
Do we ever think this way? Hardly! We feel the cultural pressure to be productive, but, deep down, we're longing for something else. We're longing for the pressure to go away. Sometimes, even as that familiar phrase crosses our lips, we secretly note that we don't regret what we did instead of, you know, "being productive." Sometimes, we really don't feel guilty about not being productive even while we say we do.
I bring this up because these moments of release, these moments when we've done something to break the mold and defy the pressure, seem to be some of the most relaxing and freeing times we've ever known. When we refuse to buy into the idea that we must spend every minute being productive (if even for a day), we feel pretty great. Sure, I wasn't productive. But that was so worth it.
Why do we feel this way?
Allow me to let you in on a little "secret": We feel this way because this was actually the way the world was meant to be.
We weren't meant to live according to a list of obligations. We weren't meant to carry this exhausting burden of thinking we have to make life happen all on our own. We were never created to bear the guilt of striving endlessly to reach standards that never cease to surpass our grasp. It's absolutely exhausting to live this way, and none of us have any fun trying to do it.
The pressure to be productive, you see, is a myth created by our constant longing to find satisfaction by our own hands. It all stems from our longing to make it on our own, our belief that we've just got to work, got to provide for our families, got to do a whole bunch of stuff. But, no matter how awesome we are at doing stuff, the pressure doesn't end. The more you feed it, the stronger it gets.
So what's the truth, then? It's this: in salvation and in life, we needn't feel the pressure to be "productive." For both (and I'm really serious about this), we don't need to do anything.
Take salvation first. This is where it all begins anyway. We messed up, missed the mark of perfection. God's solution? Not burdening us with the pressure to try again, to somehow make it on our own. Not even close. Salvation is by grace alone. It has been accomplished by Christ. Completely. It's finished. We have only to believe in His Name. No work is required. We're in.
And life? Jobs? Eh. Live out life and do your job with the truth of salvation-by-grace at the forefront of your mind. Really. Grasp that. It's a picture which your neighbors might find crazy—but which will give you a whole lot of much-needed peace. It means that the pressure's off to be successful; the game's up. We've got no need to try to "make it" in the world. None at all. We're free.
Let me make this clear: I'm not saying we should be lazy, sitting on our butts all day while others work. I'm saying that we need to throw off the idea that our life goal is to be productive. It's not.
Our life goal is a lot different than that. It is to simply enjoy relationship with our Creator and to tell everyone we can about what He did to draw us into that relationship. Phrased a bit differently, our goal is to know our Father's love and to love like He loves.
A full understanding of this will not prompt laziness. Rather, it will motivate us to creatively use all that we've been given to deepen our relationship with God and to share His love with His people. The pressure to produce evaporates. Jobs and life in general, finances, talents—everything we have becomes a tool in the kingdom, an instrument for sharing the Father's love.
Really and truly, life is our chance to know Him and His great love and to share that love with others. We don't have to do anything. Let that lie rot in the trash pile. There's no need to be productive here. Rather, because of Christ, we've been set free to live and to work and to use everything we've been given to uplift others and to glorify Him.
Imagine what that would look like lived out. Imagine if—thanks to the beauty of the gospel of grace—we dropped the burden of thinking we need to be productive and made it our sole concern to know our God, to faithfully follow Him.
In his book Unoffendable, Brant Hansen relates that it would probably look like we were doing a whole lot of nothing. He writes, "Nothing means not everything, not running around infernally, not getting our kids this lesson and that, not trying to sustain a lifestyle we 'want'—but not deep down” (p. 55). It's living out the rest that Jesus offers right here, right now. And people think that's weird. Brant puts it this way: "In this culture, 'nothing' sticks out like crazy, like, say, a city...on a hill...or something...Our whole neighborhood knew we were odd. The dad's home a lot; he's walking around with his daughter, catching lizards? The mom is home a lot, too, talking outdoors with us about the ducks? They waste time together. They waste time with us. Something's odd here..." (p. 55, emphasis in original).
That's how it's supposed to be, guys.
So, let me ask you: What would life look like for you, today, if you drop-kicked the burden of being productive and just started, you know, doin' nothin'?
