The opposite of work isn't play. It's depression.

There's the popular saying that "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy". That's just plain wrong. Studies has actually shown that people are at their happiest when doing hard work at the borders of their skill level. We need to be challenged and receive continuous feedback on our work, otherwise we'll be bored. Most of the relaxing activities that we like to do on our spare time, like watching TV, are actually mildly depressing. Persons are generally less happy, less motivated and less confident after a couple of hours in front of the TV.

So hard work makes us happy. But what's the right work? We all know that depressing feeling at work when you want nothing else than just get to the couch and leave work and stress behind. That's because companies often fail to continuously challenge their employees at the right level in a structured way, and without giving them frequent feedback. Think of the classic picture of the scientist that can't be bothered with anything else while he's immersed in developing a new product in the lab. He forgets everything else, including food, other people, and personal hygiene. That's a man who's challenged to his limits and is extremely motivated in his work. But you don't generally see that in ordinary working places, which is a pity.

A place when you do see that level of commitment and motivation however, is with gamers in front of the computer screen. Gamers are willing to put up with hard work to achieve the game goals, hours upon hours is often poured into a game.  That's because games are structured challenges, designed to make you use your skills while giving you frequent feedback on how you're doing. Gamers are highly motivated. Below is a picture of a gamer about to achieve an epic win, that means he achieve's something that he thought was almost impossible through hours of hard work. How often do you see that in a work place situation?

This is the heart of gamification. We need to use the knowledge that we have in designing games and apply them on everyday situations to make life and work more engaging. Otherwise we'll continue to feel under-motivated, under-utilized and frankly quite bored in many work-related situations.

Read more about this in Jane McGonigall's book "Reality is broken".