Perception: Work & play

How do you view your responsibilities? Are they work, maybe play or something else?

Recently I’ve read the book “Predictably Irrational” it speaks of differences between work and play. This book has inspired this blog which concentrates mostly on the theory of perception of “work” and “play”. Which category do you fit?

Mark Twain once said “work consists of whatever the body is obliged to do, and play consists of whatever the body is not obliged to do”. This means when you are forced to do something your brain considers it work, but when you do something by your own choice it is for your enjoyment.

That being said, I think we can all agree that there is a positive correlation between “work” put into a skill and success in that skill. So, what makes successful people decide to work harder than others? Is it possible to manipulate what our brain considers work and what it considers play? When successful people are hard at work, do they believe they are hard at play?

Let’s say for instance that a friend offered you $40 to listen to a motivational speaker give a lecture for one hour. Provided that you could fit it into your schedule, you would probably go because making $40 for an hour of sitting in a lecture is better than sitting somewhere else and making no money. This would be considered “work”, because you are obliged to go. Now, let’s say hypothetically that the first occurrence didn’t happen but instead someone offered you a ticket to the same motivational speaker for $40 and you decided to buy it and attend the lecture. In this case, you are no longer obliged to go and therefore this time the same lecture is considered “play”.

The difference seen here between work and play is that work is something valued by someone other than yourself (your friend who offered you $40) and play is something valued by yourself (you valued the lecture at $40). This observation shows that we can manipulate what we consider work and what we consider play simply by putting personal value on our decisions.

Many people view their job as work and therefore do not enjoy it because they are obliged and the job is valued by someone other than themselves. In order to consider our jobs play we must find our own value in them such as finding true value or personal satisfaction. It seems true that in most cases we can shift what our brain considers work to play and therefore put in far more work at any skill and increase our chances of success.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, what happens when a person turns something that was once play into work? Take professional athletes or musicians for instance. Does their passion for the skill decrease? Do they subconsciously lose their play? How do they find new “play” time if their old “play” is now work?

Could it be that their “work” remains “play” thus feeding their fuel for success? Maybe truly successful people are only bred from environments that encourage play.

             

 “There is no truth. There is only perception.” –Gustave Flaubert