The positive aspect of toxic productivity
A few months ago, I spoke with a friend from church who was feeling frustrated because, according to him, he was struggling to understand his potential. To remedy this, he decided to begin standing in front of a mirror every day and repeating positive affirmations out loud to his reflection. As he shared his story, he could see a tiny smirk form on my face, and he emphatically asked,
“What...you don’t think this will work?”
I told him: “No, it will not work for you because the potential that one has is understood by doing something difficult and telling yourself in the mirror that you are something you are not is called lying…at least in the Bible I read.”
Ancient thinkers have long recorded that “psychological victory” in the face of a challenge is paramount. At the same time, that “visualization” of the warrior winning a battle was always accompanied by relentless training beforehand. The sages of old, having trained physically, also trained their minds. On the contrary, the modern sage, having trained his mind, stops there, and tells himself that it is time to take a break. But, as with most problems that modernity faces, the solution is found in reuniting what should have never been separated: the intimate relationship between thinking and doing.
In book IX of Metaphysics, Aristotle tells us about being “in act” and “being in power”. According to this, if something is said to be “actual”, it means that, in the present, it already presents that ability or aspect. If something is said to be “potent", it means that it can become, but is not yet realized. Thus, being “in act” can be likened to a seed that is not yet actualized. That is, it only has the potency or potentiality to become a tree.
The interesting thing about the word “potency" is that in its Greek etymological origin (“dunamis"), it denotes possibility, ability, and power. This clarifies the matter when someone talks about their potential. Because it would be absurd to try to determine the potential that one possesses by making it “true” within one's own consciousness. Declaring affirmations before a mirror or verbally manifesting to the universe what one wants to be or wants to have, does nothing to eliminate the limitations of a person. And no, not everyone can become the best at something no matter how many times their mother told them they could when they were little.
If we pause for a moment at the concept of potency though and link it to the idea of possibility, we’ll find clarity for the matter at hand: I am not all I could become. if I am weak, I will not be able to lift heavy amounts of weight at first. However, as someone who has just begun lifting, I’ve not yet reached my genetic limit, that is, it is still possible to improve and lift more weight in the future. There will come a point, though, after years of training that I cannot increase the weight that I lift due to genetics and human limitation. Most people never reach their genetic limit though. In fact, the reason why most people do not reach their genetic potential is because what they are in act is typically what’s most comfortable. It’s for this reason, you hear the phrase “get out of your comfort zone”, ubiquitously throughout our culture. Personally, I prefer the words used by Aristotle, but regardless of one's taste, knowing one's potential requires a voluntary choice to walk a painful path.
From all this comes the positive aspect of toxic productivity: it tells us that to become all we can be, we must work hard. In recent years, there has been an increasing number of people who embrace the culture of productivity or the “hustle culture": getting up at 4 am, taking cold showers, meditating, morning workouts, and a whole series of activities focused on how to do more things in the shortest time possible. If we were to gather all this information in one place, it would probably look something like some kind of wizarding spell summed up with the following formula:
“If you do X long enough, then you can achieve Y”.
This is naturally true, but, like most things, the poison is in the dose, and what benefits us can also kill us. Productivity becomes “toxic" both when it denies itself and when it denies values superior to it. It denies itself when doing more reaches a point of diminishing returns. For example, when I was writing my book Amor y Resentimiento, I found quickly that I could only write for 3 hours a day. Several times I tried to write 5-6 hours a day, but each time, the following day, I would feel cognitively impaired. Now when I write, I opt for a more sensible routine consisting of about 3-4 hours of writing with zero interruptions. Productivity also becomes toxic, though, when we deny what has a greater value or represents a greater good (like the absent father who prioritizes work instead of spending time with his children).
In short, potential cannot be discovered through introspection, but rather through the testing of one’s limits of talents and capabilities. One is unaware of all that one could become, until one tries, against all odds, to see how far one can go. For one does not simply become mature, an expert in something, faster, stronger, or more intelligent, unless they are willing to do difficult things. The greatness of geniuses lies in the tireless repetition of an action. There are no shortcuts. There are no magic wands. Potential is discovered in the daily act, in the monotony of the grind.
If you are wondering what happened to my friend, the meditator, I can tell you that he was cured of that disease of looking at himself in the mirror and he repented from telling lies out loud. Fortunately, he listened to a person much wiser than me and Aristotle, a person with a more resounding and radical phrase than all the gurus of toxic productivity: “Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. " (Words of Jesus in the gospel of Saint John 12: 24). We only reach our true potential when we are willing to die for a holy cause. As I want to be considerate of the reader's time, I will elaborate on this last idea in next week's post.
