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.
Karla, your reflections on the role of leisure in life resonated with me. I also confess that I might be one of those people who would have trouble listing 20 things I love to do. I think my list is much shorter, which brings me to the point of my communication. We often talk about the importance of balance in life. Seeking balance seems to be on almost everyone’s “to do” list. Yet it seems to me that sometimes living life out of balance is warranted, desirable, etc. For example, I want the scientist who is working on a cure for cancer to be so dedicated to her quest that she is consumed by it. I want her to live her life out of balance. I want her to be a workaholic–to stay up and burn the midnight oil in her relentless pursuit of a cure. People who break barriers, who forge new ground, who are passionate about their specialty often are consumed by their quest, are they not? For some of these people (I consider myself part of this group), their work and leisure are one in the same. They continue their work after hours, on weekends, without pay. For such people, the words “work” and “leisure” seem to lose their conventional meanings. They are one in the same. I have a name for individuals who are lucky enough to experience their work and leisure this way. I call them “lucky.”
Thanks, as always, for your insight, Dan. I agree that you are one of those lucky people who has a big blur between work and leisure. I think people, and I would suspect only a very few, who have this life are really fortunate to have the privilege of melding their work and leisure. I honestly have never met one of those people outside of a handful of professionals I know. Many women, especially, with major responsibility for a household and children as well as paid work, do not have that luxury. Many people working in “essential” jobs mainly to make a living rely on their leisure to provide them with reprieve. It is a little like the idea of serious leisure, which is great if one can afford the time and money to experience it, but serious leisure is something that only an elite few can experience. I agree that there are lots of dimensions of how leisure is experienced and I applaud people who are lucky to have a passion that melds their work and leisure. I wish more people had that opportunity.
I have a good friend who is approaching his retirement. As a business owner I have seen him pull out his laptop watching football or when everyone else was heading off to bed. His work ethic is strong. A few weeks ago I asked him if he needed any “leisure counseling” to help in his transition. He gave me a Buddha like smile, laughed, & said “no thanks.” Why tell you this? To me it helps confirm the challenge of defining leisure or work as one or the other. You said bowling would not be leisure to you and while I’m not a great bowler I’d go to be with friends and to laugh. To my retiring friend “working” on his house may be his “leisure” as he is skilled, has the tools and now the time. I wish I had more discussions in my classes about the variances of leisure and work. Thanks for sharing yours.
Thanks for your insight, Jane. I think the challenge of writing about leisure in any way is recognizing how many dimensions it has. Many years ago a Canadian scholar wrote that we should ditch the idea of leisure and only talk about “meaningful activity.” I am not sure I agree with that, but I think it does point to how it can be experienced in many ways separate from work or combined with work. And I think it changes over time. I will be interested to see how your friend changes, or not, as he spends some time in retirement. I certainly feel like I have changed quite a bit in terms of what is meaningful to me as I have settled into retirement. I guess my writing, however, continues to be an extension of myself but just in a different context than when I was gainfully employed!
As usual, brilliant commentary. Such depth of thinking. Thanks, Karla.
I certainly hoping you are enjoying your leisure!