Where does it come from, this self-reaffirming need to do have done something "productive"?

You all feel it, that feeling when you look back at something you have done well, we call it satisfaction, we call it a sense of pride. There is something to be said about the adage, "Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well," but so often it only applies to what we call work. What of that mouthful of food you are chewing? Do you feel the texture, let the flavors dance upon your palate, be fully in the moment of appreciating the act of eating it? Living fully aware is close to impossible. We are not conditioned to be that way.

Even Marx argued that labor is central to a human being’s self-conception and sense of well-being. Even as revolutionary as his thinking was at the time, that humans are alienated from their own humanity by not being "owners" of their own units of labor, and the products of their labors; he still comes from a decidedly Western standpoint.

I get it. I'm Polish. The Germanic tradition of hard work was instilled into me with my Mother's milk, a generation removed from that land and into the relative safety of the 60's. It is, after all, a fairly hostile climate; and utterly necessary to over-produce and store to survive the harsh Winters. That self-preserving tribal urge cannot be reduced easily even with the layers of technology that eased the fear of immediate death by an ill-prepared village. Sure, now we can "work" and procure from a better gatherer/storer and survive; but that measure of worth being work is still just a primal reactionary response.

Is it truly our measure of worth?

Better question: SHOULD it be?