Do you enjoy leisure time intelligently?

‘To be able to fill the leisure time intelligently is the last product of civilization’, says Arnold Toynbee. For most people in our time, the term leisure time is often synonymous with ‘ non-working time’. However, there is an important distinction between the two.  Leisure time should be defined as those few precious hours each day when you are free to do whatever you want to do.

The first step towards enjoying leisure time is to recognize that it exists, and it does exist for the majority of people today. Whether you are conscious of it or not, you decide each day if you are going to use this precious time or waste it. 

Sadly, most people in today’s hectic world have become automatons. They routinely go to work each morning, put in eight hours of work before returning home, watch TV, and then go to bed. This routine repeats day after day! These folks do not live 365 different days in a year; they live the same day 365 times!

Then, there are those compulsive workers (or workaholics) who eliminate any chance of having leisure time by filling all their waking hours with work. But the day is fast approaching when more and more people will become conscious of the quality of life they lead compared to the quality of work they do.

A hobby is any voluntary activity that is consistently pursued during leisure time. Hobbies play a significant role in lives of most of us.

Ours is the age of the specialists. Within each specialty, there are subspecialties. For example, knowing everything imaginable about ball bearings can enable a person to earn a good wage as a ‘ball bearing expert’. However, if his interests are limited solely to his specialty, he will be bored with life and boring to those around him. A hobby can keep today’s specialists interested in life and interesting to those around them.

Technical advances have also made our work very demanding of our time and energy. Even though this reduces our free time further, it still makes good sense to take up a hobby because hobby activities help us to unwind at the end of a hectic day. These activities are healthier than smoking, drinking and watching TV to unwind.

Now, let’s talk about types of hobbies. Margaret E Mulac in her book ‘Hobbies: the creative use of leisure’ categorizes hobbies into four classes: learning hobbies, making hobbies, doing hobbies and collecting hobbies. Some examples of these types are:

• Learning Hobbies: studying astronomy, law, medicine, science, writing, foreign languages, history and Braille
• Making Hobbies: any of the art and craft such as woodworking, carving, photography, sketching, ceramics, jewelry, enameling, miniatures and weaving
• Doing Hobbies: reading, traveling, rail-road modeling, scale modeling, playing games of all kind, gardening, singing, playing a musical instrument, any of the nature related hobbies such as bird watching, raising tropical fish or exotic birds or cats, dogs, walking, swimming and horse riding
• Collecting Hobbies: miniatures, rocks and minerals, coins, stamps, rare books, match folders, autographs, toy trains and advertisement labels

I use most of my leisure time in reading and writing. Now, dear reader! Which hobby do you pursue to enjoy your leisure time intelligently?