Blog Summary #1

Over the past three weeks or so it has been really interesting to examine my leisure behaviour, values, and attitudes as closely as I have. Having this blog to update has forced me to think about how I define, choose, and enjoy my leisure in a way that I never have before.

I made it clear right in my first post that freetime absolutely does not equal leisure time for me. I have come to decide that in order for me to consider something as leisure it needs to have the following: Freedom. More specifically I need freedom from certain things like stress, pressures, and certain responsibilities. I don’t necessarily need the freedom to choose the activity. Oftentimes I find myself having the most fun doing leisure that I had no choice in whatsoever (even somethings that I didn’t originally want to do). I therefore also don’t need my leisure to be intrinsically motivated. I still consider extrinsically motivated leisure to be valuable. For example, I was both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated to go paintballing a couple of weekends ago and I had such a good time. I love every minute of it and was completely in flow. Time went by so fast and I had so much energy (until it was all over). On the other hand, the wedding is a good example. This was a completely intrinsically motivated activity, I was completely free to go or not go to this event. I wanted to be there for no external reason. Despite this, I didn’t really have a great time. There were other factors at play, including a lack of freedom to sit with my friends and enjoy good company. This brings up another point. For me, spending time with the people that I care about makes almost any activity more enjoyable. The social aspect of my leisure activities contributes immensely to my level of enjoyment and satisfaction.
I’ve also realised that there are a lot of things that I LOVE doing, but never actually seem to do lately. I love going to concerts, museums and art galleries. I have been telling myself that it is money that has been constraining my lately from participating in these things, but I’m wondering if that’s all there is to it. There are also some friends who I don’t see very often anymore because of conflicting work and school schedules. Perhaps a little more planning and structure is required here. Sometimes leisure can’t be as spontaneous as we might like. Sometimes life and responsibilities mean making changes to how I used to leisure.

What has also been interesting for me to observe is that I often feel like I do nothing but go to school and work. This blog has made me appreciate my time more, and realize that I do in fact have lots of other things going on in my life. I’m not as boring as I thought.