The Four Ps: Choosing Posture Before Productivity

From Tasks to Posture

There was a period in my life where the problem I was trying to solve wasn’t motivation, discipline, or even direction. It was posture. I was doing the right kinds of things—studying, working, taking responsibility—but something about how I was relating to those things felt strained. Tasks that should have been meaningful felt heavy. Work that mattered to me felt increasingly frustrating. Even good opportunities began to feel subtly misaligned.

What I noticed was that I could approach the same task in very different ways. Sometimes I was present and engaged. Other times I was tense, driven, or simply enduring. The task itself hadn’t changed, but my orientation toward it had. That realisation became the seed of a simple framework—not to tell me what to do, but to help me notice how I was showing up to what I was already doing.

I began to name four distinct perspectives that I seemed to move between: play, passion, purpose, and partnering. They weren’t steps, and they weren’t meant to be exhaustive. They were ways of relating—lenses I could look through when deciding how to carry a piece of work, a project, or a responsibility. Sometimes what was missing wasn’t effort or clarity, but permission. Other times it was alignment, imagination, or shared agency.

At the time, I wasn’t trying to explain life, or develop a theory of meaning. I was trying to find a less distorted way of inhabiting my days. The framework emerged pragmatically, out of lived experience, as a way of asking a different kind of question: From what posture am I approaching this? And just as importantly, which posture is absent or being suppressed?

Only later did it become clear that these perspectives were pointing beyond individual tasks. But that wasn’t obvious at the beginning. What mattered then—and what still matters now—was learning to notice the difference between doing something, and the world from which that doing proceeds.

The Realisation: These Were Never Just Task Postures

As time went on, I began to notice something that the original framework hadn’t explicitly named. While I could choose my posture toward a task to some degree, that choice was not made in a vacuum. Certain environments made some postures feel natural, even effortless, while others quietly resisted them. In some contexts, play felt irresponsible. In others, passion felt unsafe. Purpose could become oppressive, and partnering could feel like a liability rather than a strength.

What this suggested was that the issue wasn’t simply internal. It wasn’t only about personal attitude or discipline. There were settings—organisational, relational, cultural—where these perspectives could not easily coexist. They were tolerated selectively, or rewarded only when they served a narrower aim. I could still name the postures, but sustaining them required effort, justification, or concealment.

This was the point at which the framework began to shift for me. What had started as a way of choosing how to approach a task gradually revealed itself as a way of discerning the kind of world I was operating within. Some worlds seemed to invite presence and alignment. Others were structured around urgency, output, or control, leaving little room for imagination or shared agency. The postures themselves hadn’t changed, but the conditions that allowed them to remain intact had.

I also began to see how easily one posture could dominate when the others were constrained. Purpose, detached from play, hardened into pressure. Passion, without partnering, became isolating. Play, cut off from purpose, drifted into avoidance. These weren’t personal failures so much as predictable responses to the worlds in which they were being asked to function.

Looking back, it became clear that the Four Ps were never meant to be optimised or sequenced. They were descriptive. They were naming dimensions of healthy participation that could either be supported or distorted depending on the context. What I had taken to be a personal discernment tool was also quietly functioning as a diagnostic one—revealing not only how I was relating to my work, but what kind of environment that work was taking place in.

This reframing didn’t invalidate the original framework. It deepened it. The question was no longer only, Which posture do I need here? It was also, What kind of world am I in, if this posture feels unavailable or costly to maintain?

Play — Presence Before Performance

Play was the first of these perspectives to take shape, and in many ways the easiest to misunderstand. I wasn’t using the word to mean leisure, recreation, or time off. I was trying to name a way of being present to what is in front of me without immediately turning it into a means to something else. Play, in this sense, refers to the present. It is about being with a task rather than standing over it, doing it for its own sake rather than only for what it produces.

I noticed that when I approached my work playfully, I was more attentive, more curious, and less fragmented. I could engage without immediately justifying the engagement. The work didn’t have to prove its worth before I was allowed to be present to it. By contrast, when play was absent, everything felt instrumental. Even rest became something to be earned or defended. Presence itself required permission.

In psychological terms, this resonates with what Donald Winnicott described as the space of play—the intermediate space where the self can emerge without coercion or performance. For Winnicott, play is not optional. It is the condition under which the true self becomes available at all. When that space collapses, what remains is adaptation, compliance, or defence.

There is also a theological parallel here. Abraham Joshua Heschel described Sabbath not as rest for the sake of work, but as participation in a different order of reality altogether—a world in which worth is not contingent on output. In that sense, play is not opposed to responsibility. It is a refusal to let responsibility become the sole criterion of value.

When play is distorted or suppressed, two patterns tend to emerge. One is rigid instrumentalism, where every action must justify itself in advance. The other is a kind of pseudo-play, where pleasure becomes escape rather than presence. In both cases, the ability to remain openly engaged with what is actually happening is lost.

Play, as I originally meant it, was an attempt to protect that capacity. It was a reminder that presence is not something to be earned, and that without some measure of non-instrumental engagement, even meaningful work begins to feel hostile.

Passion — Alignment Rather Than Intensity

Passion was the most inward-facing of the four perspectives. I wasn’t using the word to describe excitement, energy, or emotional heat. What I was trying to name was alignment—whether what I was doing resonated with something true about me, whether it reflected values I recognised as my own, and whether I could locate myself honestly within the work rather than merely performing it.

When passion was present, effort felt coherent. Even when the work was difficult, it carried a sense of rightness. I could feel the cost of the task without resenting it, because it was connected to something I cared about. When passion was absent, the opposite occurred. I might still function competently, but there was a subtle sense of dislocation, as though I were borrowing motivation rather than drawing it from within.

This aligns closely with what Carl Rogers described as congruence—the condition in which experience, awareness, and action are in alignment. From that perspective, psychological strain is not caused primarily by effort, but by misalignment. When we repeatedly act in ways that do not reflect what we value or recognise as meaningful, the self begins to fragment.

There is also an older theological language that helps clarify this. Augustine of Hippo spoke of the ordering of loves—the idea that the health of a life depends not on whether we desire, but on what our desires are oriented toward. In that sense, passion is not something to be generated, but something to be discerned and tended. It reflects where our loves are already pointing.

Passion becomes distorted in two common ways. In one direction, it hardens into compulsion. Identity collapses into activity, and the work must succeed in order for the self to feel intact. In the other direction, passion is muted or distrusted altogether. Desire is treated as unreliable, dangerous, or naïve, and is gradually sidelined. What remains is a kind of moral apathy—functioning without inward investment.

In its original sense, passion was meant to guard against both extremes. It was a way of asking whether I was personally invested in what I was doing, and whether that investment was life-giving rather than consuming. Not everything needs to be passionate, but when nothing is, the cost is more than boredom. It is a slow erosion of coherence.

Passion, then, was never about chasing intensity. It was about remaining recognisable to myself in the midst of responsibility.

Purpose — Living Toward the Future Without Being Driven by It

Purpose emerged as the most explicitly future-oriented of the four perspectives. I was trying to name the way imagination, vision, and direction shape how we inhabit the present. Purpose, as I understood it, was not about certainty or control. It was about allowing the future to exist as something more than a threat or a demand—to relate to what lies ahead as an invitation rather than a burden.

When purpose was present, effort had context. The work I was doing connected to a larger picture, even if that picture was still forming. I could tolerate uncertainty because there was a sense of movement, of becoming. Without that orientation, the present began to feel flat and repetitive. Tasks accumulated, but they no longer cohered. Life became a series of obligations rather than a story unfolding.

This understanding resonates with the work of Viktor Frankl, who observed that human beings are sustained not merely by comfort or success, but by meaning—particularly meaning that is oriented toward the future. For Frankl, purpose was not a goal to be achieved, but a horizon that allows suffering and effort to be endured without collapse. Meaning, in that sense, does not remove difficulty; it renders it bearable.

There is also a theological dimension to this orientation. Jürgen Moltmann described hope not as optimism or prediction, but as openness to promise. The future, in this view, is not something we manage or secure. It addresses us, draws us forward, and reshapes how the present is lived. Purpose, when held in this way, does not narrow attention. It expands it.

Purpose becomes distorted when the future is misrelated to. In one direction, it hardens into anxiety. The future becomes a looming demand, and meaning is carried as pressure. Everything in the present is evaluated in terms of whether it is “enough” or “on track.” In the other direction, purpose collapses altogether. Imagination shuts down, and life contracts into maintenance. There is no forward pull, only repetition.

What I was trying to protect with this perspective was neither ambition nor certainty. Purpose, as I meant it, was about allowing the future to inform the present without dominating it. It was about relating to what might be coming as something that could be explored rather than enforced.

Held in that way, purpose does not rush the present. It gives it room to breathe.

Partnering — Shared Agency Rather Than Control

Partnering was the most relational of the four perspectives, and in some ways the most confronting. I was trying to name what happens when a task, a project, or a responsibility is no longer carried alone—when another person’s presence, perspective, or contribution is genuinely invited in. This was not about delegation or assistance. It was about releasing sole ownership of both process and outcome.

When partnering was present, the work changed character. It became less controllable, but also less isolating. Ideas developed in ways I couldn’t have anticipated. Responsibility was shared, not diluted. There was a sense that what was being done belonged to something larger than my own effort or competence. Without partnering, even meaningful work could become quietly oppressive. Everything depended on me, and therefore everything had to be managed.

From a psychological perspective, this aligns with what John Bowlby described as a secure base—the relational condition that allows exploration, risk, and agency to emerge. Independence, in this view, is not the absence of reliance, but the presence of trust. When relational safety is lacking, control often steps in to compensate.

There is also a philosophical clarity to this posture. Martin Buber distinguished between relationships that treat the other as an object to be managed, and those that meet the other as a presence to be encountered. Partnering, as I meant it, belonged to the latter. It required openness to being changed by the relationship itself, not merely supported by it.

Partnering becomes distorted in predictable ways. In one direction, it is avoided altogether. Self-sufficiency hardens into self-sovereignty, and reliance is experienced as weakness or threat. In the other direction, partnering collapses into enmeshment. Agency is surrendered rather than shared, and responsibility becomes blurred. In both cases, genuine collaboration is lost—either to isolation or to over-dependence.

What I was trying to preserve with this perspective was the possibility of shared agency without loss of self. Partnering was a reminder that some kinds of work—and some kinds of growth—cannot be carried alone without becoming distorted. Inviting another’s participation necessarily means relinquishing control, but it also means releasing the illusion that control was ever sufficient in the first place.

Partnering, then, was not an optional extra. It was an acknowledgement of the relational nature of agency itself.

The World the Four Perspectives Describe

By this point it became clear that the four perspectives were not independent tools that could be applied at will. They described different dimensions of the same lived reality. When they were able to coexist, work felt humane and sustainable. When one or more were suppressed, the others began to distort. The issue was no longer simply which posture to adopt, but whether the world I was inhabiting allowed these postures to remain intact together.

Play without passion drifted toward distraction. Passion without partnering became isolating. Purpose without play hardened into pressure. Partnering without purpose lost direction. None of these perspectives failed on their own; they failed when separated from the others. What emerged was not a sequence to be followed, but a picture of balance—of a world in which presence, alignment, imagination, and shared agency could mutually support one another.

This is why the framework resists being turned into a system. It was never meant to optimise behaviour or guarantee outcomes. It was descriptive rather than prescriptive. It named conditions under which responsibility could be carried without eroding the self. When those conditions were present, effort felt costly but meaningful. When they were absent, even small tasks accumulated weight.

Seen this way, the Four Ps do not explain what to do. They help discern what kind of world is being enacted through the way work is structured, relationships are held, and time is imagined. They offer language for noticing when a context quietly undermines presence, suppresses desire, constricts the future, or isolates agency—and for recognising the cost of that undermining before it becomes normal.

Development Rather Than Reinvention

Looking back, I don’t read the original framework as something I outgrew or corrected. I read it as something I came to understand more fully over time. When I first named these perspectives, I was responding to immediate pressures and frustrations. I was trying to inhabit my days with less distortion. Only later did it become clear that the questions I was asking of myself were also questions about the worlds I was moving within.

That development matters. It keeps the framework grounded in lived experience rather than abstraction. It also prevents it from becoming a tool of self-judgment or self-improvement. The Four Ps are not standards to measure oneself against. They are ways of noticing when life is being carried in a manner that is sustainable, relational, and honest—and when it is not.

The question they leave us with is a quiet one. Not, Which posture should I adopt? but rather, What kind of world is being created by the way I am living, working, and relating? And just as importantly, Which of these perspectives is being quietly excluded, and at what cost?

That question, more than the framework itself, is what continues to guide the journey home.