It all comes down to TIME!
When someone asks what do you do in your leisure time I always feel like I have nothing to tell them or that I lead a very unfulfilling life. Usually people talk about the activities or hobbies or passions they have when they talk about their leisure time. However after the class came up with our description of leisure, which is a “state of mind, freely chosen that results in intrinsic feelings of happiness, satisfaction, pleasure and or enjoyment”, I realized that leisure can be anything I want it to be. Therefore I am saying that to me leisure is being in a state of mind where I realize that I am doing something that makes me happy. I cannot say that I have any real hobbies or pastimes, therefore my intrinsic motivation is doing things for myself and others that make me enjoy the time I spend doing it. This could be shopping with a friend, watching a movie on a Saturday night with my boyfriend, going out to dance the night away to an amazing DJ, going home for the weekend to see my family or just curling up in bed with a good book and some chocolate chip cookies. I believe that I show that I understand leisure in my blog by writing about any of the activities I do which fall under the category of making me happy. I have written about friends, family and things that I do where I feel intrinsically happy.
I feel as though my appreciation and value for leisure is shown in my blogs because I write about the simple things in life, I also have on entry where I was feeling upset and stressed out because I felt as though I was not getting enough time to leisure. To feel balanced and fulfilled in my life I need an equal amount of time to be taking care of life’s responsibilities which I am obligated to do and to also have time for myself to choose my state of mind.
In many ways I feel as though my leisure is constrained because of the everyday tasks that are forced upon us. I feel as though there is a bit of an endless cycle that exists starting at a young age. When your a kid it seems like you have all the time in the world to enjoy your life and live intrinsically. Once we begin school a life time of deadlines, appointments and responsibilities follow. In order to leisure you need to have time to do it, however in order to live a comfortable life you need to have a job, in order to have a job you need to have an education and the cycle goes on and on. Therefore my constraints are made up of both intra and inter personal constraints. Technically I could lead a life of freedom and simplicity with no job and very little responsibility; however I choose to live and maintain the comfortable life I have grown a accustomed to (Intra); so I make myself attend school and work. I have expressed my concern about my constraints in a few of my blogs, and even tried to do something about them, for example quit one of my jobs. And I have found that writing about my concern of my lack of leisure time has made me realize that if I put in the hard work well and pull through these hectic schedules and packed to the rim days now, then it will pay off when I am older and I can have more time then to enjoy life.
I feel in order to become better leisure educated I need to become better organized with the time that I do have and be better at differentiating free time and leisure time. When I have free time that doesn’t necessarily mean that I can watch a movie go out with my friends or slack off. I believe my free time is there to get assignments, cleaning, cooking or other daily tasks done. Then once those are done I can make leisure time for myself and participate in something that makes me truly happy.
As much as I do like the way that I spend my leisure time there are still so many things and by things I mean hobbies and pastimes which I would love to say that I participate in. I say this however I always seem to come up with some sort of excuse for why I do not get to it. One day though I hope I pick up my slack and get to them, I guess keep posted to my blog and I’ll let you know how that goes.
