Volunteering is not work.
For me personally, I make a distinction between "working" and "creating". I will always want to create (a very broad term), but I will not always want to work. In fact, I don't want to work now; I only want to create. The best is when I can exchange my creation for money -- then it is no longer work.
When someone contemplates the wisdom of an entrepreneur who says he’s going to work until he dies, they’re not worried he might volunteer too much.
By this definition, going to the toilet is "work". If that's the case, I never want to get to a point where I stop working.
Taking a shit? Not work. Cleaning the toilet? Work.
Eating dinner? Not work. Cooking dinner? Work.
Playing badminton on your lawn? Not work. Mowing the lawn? Work.
Napping on your Ikea couch? Not work. Assembling that couch? Work.
It also comes across as very out of touch and privileged, because unless you have a relatively cushy job, you would definitely not see the difference between being paid or not as irrelevant. There are plenty of people who have to work very hard just to make ends meet, be it physically exhausting work, or repetitive and monotonous work. And they will not have the capacity to work even harder once they clock out of work, no matter the incentives, because they'll be spent and unable to.
No, it's a very apt and useful definition. It's just not one you appreciate.
> It also comes across as very out of touch and privileged, because unless you have a relatively cushy job, you would definitely not see the difference between being paid or not as irrelevant.
This comment is a straw man, because I didn't say pay was irrelevant. I said work is work whether you're paid or not.
It also ironically shows that you are out of touch and privileged, as your comment completely ignores two of the heaviest workloads in the world, housework and child-rearing. Neither are generally paid and both are most definitely work.
Only a completely out-of-touch and privileged person could think otherwise.
"I worked on my yard today"
Your definition is arbitrary and goes against the established use of the word. Work can be many things. When people say they don't want to stop working, they are just saying they want to keep changing the world in big or small ways until they die.
