By DR. JESUS P. ESTANISLAO

MANILA, Philippines Resulting from the work we do, which we are duty-bound to do as well as we can, we gain access to economic and financial resources. We get rewarded for our work. From the fruits of our work, we acquire claims to material resources with which to sustain our life and move forward towards prosperity. Indeed, the economic and financial perspectives of our personal life are shaped mainly by the work we do.

The link between work and its economic and financial consequences underscores our duty to be productive. We do not go about our work irresponsibly. Rather, we work with productive results in view. We deliver results. We add value. Before we ever ask, what is in it for me, we should first ask, what contribution am I making? What positive difference am I bringing to the table through the work I do? Indeed, what is my added value?

The answer we give to the question about the value we add is critical for our personal self-worth as well as for the economic worth we are entitled to, arising from the work we do.

Our sense of self-worth comes, in part, from an appreciation of our productivity. At any time, our productivity is at a given level, taking into account a whole set of factors and circumstances that help define the results we actually deliver, e.g., our training and motivation, the tools and equipment we have at hand, and the organizational infrastructure that supports our work. It is also clear that as we strive to improve and perfect ourselves through our work, our productivity should continuously be rising. It should always be going higher; and over time, we progress towards much higher levels. Sometimes, our productivity takes a leap. It may on occasion jump, unrestrained by a few bounds.

Our level of productivity or the standard of efficiency and effectiveness we achieve at any given time helps determine our personal worth. It links with our economic and financial worth: Our pay is closely tied up with our level of performance at any given time. Over time, pay should move up progressively with performance. This is how, in broad terms, we should make progress in economic and financial terms.

It is for this reason that in our work we should always be open to training, new learning, a higher level of efficiency and effectiveness arising from innovation and the application of new knowledge and technology. Since we have to do our work well, we seek to do it with the use of science properly applied to our actual circumstances. Most of the technology we adopt we simply get from elsewhere, e.g., off the shelf. But at least a portion of the technology we use may have to be home-grown: We need to do a lot of creative, innovative work in tweaking readily available technology so it is duly fitted to the proper requirements and specific demands of the work we carry out.

We can innovate and adapt new technology to our own work circumstances, only if we make continuing investments; and investments are possible only if we observe the practice of setting aside some savings. We just do not spend everything we earn; our income should generally be higher than our expenses. It is imperative for us to save resources, i.e., both time and money, for training and re-tooling. We are duty-bound, therefore, to bring our operations to a productive and efficient level where we can set aside some savings for prudent and smart deployment in investments on improved processes and newer, significantly more efficient technology.

The old Pauline dictum still holds: we work, and so we eat. We should also work very well, so in addition to eating (and consuming), we can save as well, and thereby invest for sustaining growth and development.

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Personal, Economic, And Financial Concerns