Productiveness entails taking responsibility for achieving one's objective values. The practice of this virtue is necessary, not only in order to provide oneself with the specific values necessary to living one's life on the highest possible level, but also in order to experience oneself as an efficacious being. (We shall see later that the sense of efficacy is one of the two basic aspects of self-esteem.) Productiveness is the chief outward manifestation of self-actualization, the state of optimal mental health studied by the well-known psychologist Abraham Maslow. Maslow's investigations centered upon self-actualization in the most brilliant creative geniuses. Nevertheless, productiveness is not just a goal toward which the most gifted producers are to aspire. Like the virtue of thinking (cf. pp. 3.10:4-5), productiveness should be practiced by each individual to the best of his or her ability. As it is interpreted here, productiveness may be manifested not only in a person's career, but also in any other project undertaken in pursuit of worthwhile goals.     

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