Define "work"

[lillibet]

Elsewhere, someone was discussing the work that he and his partner are doing to improve/sustain their relationship and someone else commented that if a relationship requires work, then it may not be worth continuing. This led into a discussion of what defines "work," more generally. If you enjoy a process, is it work? If you choose to do something, is it work? Are activities you undertake in pursuit of a hobby work? If you get paid to do something, is that work? If the product of your activity mainly benefits someone else, is that work? What activities do not count as work? What is work?

EDIT: For those of you who enjoy conversations between dpolicar and me as a spectator sport, be sure to check out the comments.

Comments

Excerpts from IM, Part 2

[lillibet.livejournal.com]

Re: Excerpts from IM, Part 2

[pekmez.livejournal.com]

Wow. I think very differently about what "hard" and "work" when it comes to engineering-type things: "hard" is when there is a significant chance
of failure because, for example, I'm not sure my skill set can stretch to
coming up with a solution to the problem, and "requires work" is when something takes my particular skill set and some focused effort and time,
but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get it done in the end and be happy with the result. (And the focused effort and time ought not to be too unpleasant, or else it falls into some other category again.) "easy"
is "requires work that is far enough below my skill level that I don't
have to worry about it at all".

I prefer "requires work", or on the easy-enough end of "hard" that the
risk of failure is somewhat low; I hate when "hard" borders on "seems impossible" and yet there we all are bashing along at it and failing.

'course, then there's also when "seems impossible" meets "sudden inspiration" and then you actually have accomplished something that
seemed nearly insurmountable, and that feels great - but I hate the
part of the process of getting there before the sudden inspiration
and feeling doomed.