Enterprising but not opportunistic

WE are, of course, encouraged to be very fruitful and

productive in our life. There should be no time for laziness and

idleness. Even in our periods of rest, we can and should always be

productive, since rest is not about doing nothing but rather about

doing something different from the usual things we do which gives us

some relaxation but can still be productive in another way.

            Our rest should not undermine our desire and eagerness to

work. Rather, it should renew us physically, mentally and spiritually

in such a way that we would like to work more and be productive. In

short, our rest should not take us away from our duty to work and to

be productive, but would rather reinforce it.

            Thus, if we are truly serious about being fruitful and

productive, we should be as enterprising as possible, even

entrepreneurial, quick to take initiatives and to open new ventures

that can benefit many people and make a significant change in our

lives. We should be able to use and optimize all our resources,

natural and man-made, for this purpose.

            We just have to make sure that all this is our way of

giving glory to God that would translate itself to working for the

common good, and not just for our own personal good. Otherwise, all

that productiveness would amount to nothing and can, in fact, occasion

a great danger to us, as Christ himself said: “What does it a profit a

man if he gains the whole world but loses his own soul?” (Mk 8,36)

            At the moment, we can wonder if indeed this is the

principal motive and driving force why we at present work. I have my

doubts. Even a cursory look around somehow would tell me that God is

often out of the picture when work is given some consideration. We

need to address this issue.

            We have to see to it that our efforts to be fruitful and

productive are not of the opportunistic type that would take advantage

of the weaknesses of the others to bolster our personal interests.

Opportunistic fruitfulness is selfish or self-serving productiveness.

            Rather our efforts to be fruitful and productive should

address real needs of the people, not the artificial ones that, while

generating some economic activity, can lead us sooner or later to

anomalies like materialism, commercialism, hedonism and other isms.

They should be made to clearly serve and reinforce the true and

objective dignity of man.

            In this regard, we should expect some sacrifices and forms

of self-denial to be involved. We just should not behave according to

purely economic laws that may already ignore or even contradict not so

much our legal system as our objective moral law. A form of

fruitfulness and productiveness that is without morality will always

be fake, deceptive and dangerous.

            Educating people about this attitude toward work and life

in general is now a big challenge because it can readily be seen that

many people nowadays, especially the young ones, do not have yet the

right spirit of work. They work only for themselves, to satisfy not so

much their personal needs as their ‘caprichos.’

            I imagine that this phenomenon must be a result of years

of miseducating the previous generations about the true spirit of work

and about what it means to be truly fruitful and productive.

            Indeed a massive effort to inculcate a good work ethic,

one that instills genuine spirituality and morality, should be

launched. Of course, this should not be done in a coercive way, since

that would defeat the purpose. It has to be done in an atmosphere of

freedom and a sincere pursuit of what is true and proper for us

insofar as our work is concerned.

            Of course, all this has to start in the family, before we

can count on the subsidiary support of schools, parishes, offices and

other entities.