What is work?

I've been wondering what work is recently? The definition, I mean, of paid work and its meaning for us all, individually and as part of society. Bear with me, this might be a bit of a ramble as I try to sort my thoughts out.
Like many people of a thoughtful disposition, I've found working for a living stressful quite often, and I know this to be because I've never found paid work which really fits with my personality, skills, and values. So, that's what I'm trying to do now. I need to work for money (sadly) and so I want o find work which fits as much as possible with my values and skills, so that I find it more fulfilling and less stressful.
A book I've been reading recently differentiates between a 'job', 'occupation', 'career', and 'vocation' with job being what you do to pay the rent, occupations something you are slightly more invested in, a career something you put more of yourself into and get more out of, and a vocation being something you'd do anyway, even if you weren't being paid for it.
So, should we all be holding out for 'vocation'-type paid work? Is this realistic? If it isn't, why isn't it and could it ever be realistic?
It's not that I'm a work-shy layabout. I work very hard all day every day - I home educate my children and nurture them with love, food, rest and everything else I think they need. I create a home, I put a lot into my relationship with my husband and our families and friends. I cook, clean, grow food and look after the cat. Does this count as work? I do it for love not money.
I also write - I do this often, whether I'm paid for it or not although I'd love to be paid for it. So is this work? Or is it only work if I'm paid? I can't really think that the definition of work has to include payment, and yet that is what it seems to be in the general society definition. I can't help but think that this is part of the problem - work and paid-work have become two separate things, quite often two opposing things, pulling in opposite directions. It's all part of that whole work/family split that is the norm now but never was in the past until the advent of the Industrial Revolution.
I feel as if I'm pulling against my instincts so much of the time just trying to make our life work in the framework that the 21st century imposes on it, and I don't think I'm quite brave enough to drop out entirely from that framework. I don't think I even want to drop out entirely from our society - I want to be part of a community and I want to live among other people. I'm just feeling this clash every day and it sets my teeth on edge all the time, so there's this background stress that I can't filter out and it makes it harder to make every other decision as my true instincts get lost in all this white noise.