The Work

Six days shalt thou labor and do all thy work – Exodus 20:9

And so we work, six, seven, or—if you’re the Beatles—eight days a week. But what does it mean? Is “work” a word in such common usage that we don’t think about a definition?

Consider the following definitions:

Work in Physics

The transfer of energy from one object to another, especially to make the second object move.

Work as Noun

The exertion or effort directed to accomplish something. It can also mean the place where we do this exerting, or the actual material we are exerting effort on. This allows sentences like, “I went to work to work on my work of art.”

Work as Verb

To manage, operate, or make as in, “This camera is easy to work, allowing me to work with images of social injustice so that I can work a change in the world.”

Work as Adjective

Describing objects related to work. “I put on my work clothes and break out my woodworking tools.”

Each definition merits further study and consideration, but I have two more definitions:

work (with a lowercase w): This is the busy work of life; the things that contribute to the economic, social, or leisure bottom line of life. It’s the grocery shopping, and the post office, the obligatory dinners, the email, and so forth. This is the work that dominates our lives six or seven days a week.

Work (with an uppercase W): This is effort we put into our purpose or calling. Most of us don’t do it often enough and many of us don’t even know what this work is but there are some ways I’ve learned to recognize it:

  • It is not assigned to you by anyone
  • Doing it makes to less tired rather than more
  • It elicits a powerful, almost supernatural opposition called resistance

The second hardest work out there is simply to distinguish between work and Work. The hardest Work is to do the Work…everyday…eight days a week.