“Work hard and you’ll be successful.” “You just need to put in a little hard work.” “Whew! I worked so hard today.”
We say things like this all the time without thinking about it. Recently, my bedframe broke and I needed the mattress moved. Despite my newly developed manly-man muscles (thank you, Trainer Tyler), decades of sitting zombie-like in front of a flickering computer monitor has left me unable to do stuff like, say, lift things in the real world.
My cleaning lady and her husband offered to move the mattress. As I was watching them haul it between rooms, it looked like awful hard work. I sipped my martini and pondered the thought. Hard work.
Hard work. To an outside observer, I sit in one place all day and think. Sometimes, it feels like very hard work. My cleaning lady hauls mattresses, which I’m almost physically incapable of doing. Does she experience that as hard work?
The more I thought, the more a pattern became clear as to what makes something “hard work” for me. I don’t want to give it away just yet, until I’ve heard your thoughts.
Please tell me: what are some things you consider hard work, and what is it about them that makes them “hard work” rather than just “work” or “random activities” or “play”