Tom said to himself that it wasn’t such a hollow world after all. He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it-namely, that in order to make a human covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain. If he had been a great and wise philosopher, 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 treadmill is work, while enrolling tenpins or climbing Mont Blanc is only amusement.           The boy mused a while over the substantial change which had taken place in his worldly circumstances.

Edited from Mark Twain, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

“All opening is a hazard. You arrive at a crossroad. If you can see which way, if it is clearly labeled, that the road on the left is the one that leads to your destination, then choosing that way is not an opportunity. If the way is not labeled at this crossroad-and in life our ways are not labeled-then when we come to the crossroad, there is an uncertainty and a suspense and, with that, an opportunity. How to recognize this? That is really the art of living.”

J.G.Bennet, Hazard The Risk of Realization.