An activity I did with my classes (both at the university and for public presentations) was to ask folks to make a list of “20 Things I Love to Do.” Not everyone could come up with 20, but we would discuss dimensions of their activities such as whether they were done outside/inside, alone/with others, cost money, and further, whether the “thing” would be considered leisure or not. Almost all their responses were considered leisure. I made the point that most things that were personally important and meaningful were considered leisure.
I suggested that I have never heard anyone on their deathbed indicating that they wished they had worked harder or longer. When people reflect on their lives, they value the relationships and the activities they enjoyed. They value experiences in their lives that brought them warm playful memories and made them smile.
I view the world through a leisure lens. Obviously, I am biased as I did research about leisure for over 45 years and I view the world in terms of how any event influences individual and community leisure and well-being. I make no apologies for this worldview because I believe that leisure is what makes life worth living. I do not mean that I am only interested in hedonism, although that can be an outcome of leisure. I advocate that leisure is an inherent right, responsibility, privilege, and entitlement that defines who each of us is, and the quality of our communities.
I was ingrained with a work ethic by my rural upbringing. A reason I became interested in studying leisure was because I watched how hard everyone around me worked, and it seemed to me there had to be more to life. Leisure complements economic or socially necessary work and offers people a means for growth and self-expression in their lives.
As my colleague Dan Dustin suggests, life is meaningful not because of a work ethic, but because of a worth ethic that leisure belies. Yet, the idea of leisure is often downplayed and discounted.
Leisure is ubiquitous. Most people know what it is and know the feeling of not having it, but defining it is elusive. One of the women I interviewed for a research project once told me that she did not want to define leisure, she wanted to FIND it.
A classical notion of leisure is free time. However, little time is totally free of obligations. Some people have too much free time (e.g., unemployed people) and it isn’t leisure for them. Another common definition is leisure as activity. Many leisure activities exist but what is leisure for me may not be for you. For example, many people enjoy bowling. Not me. I would never consider it leisure.
I understand leisure best as a state of mind, a personal experience usually associated with free choice and opportunities for self-expression, joy, play, and/or personal development. People know when they are having these experiences and seek them. Leisure is central to a life well lived.
Although leisure offers opportunities for enjoyment, leisure is not always good since it can be an avenue for injury to self or others. Nothing is good without recognizing the responsibility associated with any behavior–the worth ethic.
My appreciation of leisure continues to evolve. Since I no longer study leisure with empirical data, I have more time existentially to experience it. Everyone deserves leisure whether it is extended periods of time away from the everyday routine, or minute vacations where one simply takes a deep breath and enjoys the beauty of the moment. I find minute vacations in cuddling with my kitties or reminiscing from photos of vacations with friends. Regardless of what you call it, or how you define it, I hope people never have a problem listing 20 things they love to do.