What Do You Call Work?

I learned a great lesson today from Tom Sawyer. We have a lot to learn from this mischievous redheaded genius. It’s not only that I relish those days when I was a pirate, going on adventures letting time pass by in what seemed like an endless summer; it’s more than that, but it’s only now that I realize what I overlooked before.

It’s human nature; make something hard to get and it will be all the more enticing for others to want whatever you have, even if it’s not important. Can you think of how many times has someone dangled a carrot in front of your eyes? Would you have run after it if it were easy to catch?

Let’s take it a step further; notwithstanding our individuality, we are more likely to act with a herd mentality. We all need to belong. We even go as far as to pay to belong. In fact making it costly is probably what makes belonging so important. Mark Twain noticed this peculiar need, in his words:

“If he (Tom Sawyer) had been a great and wise philosopher, like the writer of this book, he would now have comprehended that Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do, and that Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would help him to understand why constructing artificial flowers or performing on a tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England who drive four-horse passenger- coaches twenty or thirty miles on a daily line, in the summer, because the privilege costs them considerable money; but if they were offered wages for the service, that would turn it into work and then they would resign”

A simple theory, an understandable paradox. I owe it all to Tom…