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"Productiveness is your acceptance of morality,
your recognition of the fact that you choose to live—
that productive work is the process by which man’s consciousness
controls his existence, a constant process of acquiring knowledge
and shaping matter to fit one’s purpose,
of translating an idea into physical form,
of remaking the earth in the image of one’s values
—that all work is creative work if done by a thinking mind,
and no work is creative if done by a blank
who repeats in uncritical stupor a routine he has learned from others
—that your work is yours to choose, and the choice is as wide as your mind,
that nothing more is possible to you and nothing less is human
—that to cheat your way into a job bigger than your mind can handle
is to become a fear-corroded ape on borrowed motions and borrowed time,
and to settle down into a job that requires less than your mind’s full capacity
is to cut your motor and sentence yourself to another kind of motion: decay
-that your work is the process of achieving your values,
and to lose your ambition for values is to lose your ambition to live. - Ayn Rand