Use and Abuse of Leisure

USE AND ABUSE OF LEISURE

We all feel tired after a day’s hard work. Then we need some rest or some sort of recreation. This rest or recreation makes us fresh and fit for work again the next day. This period is our leisure period.

Leisure time is necessary for us and we must have it. Nobody can keep on working continuously without leisure. Now let us see how we should employ our leisure time. There are many people who think that leisure means plain idleness. This is a wrong idea about leisure or rest. Rest or recreation really means a change from one kind of activity to another.  To take an example, a man who has been doing hard physical work can read some interesting books or magazines during his leisure period. A person who is usually engaged in intellectual work like reading, writing, teaching or learning and so on, can spend his leisure hours in painting or music or photography. A person may do some carpentry or gardening in his leisure hours. He will have a change from his usual routine of work. The result will be real enjoyment.

On the other hand one can also misuse leisure. He can while away his leisure hours in just sleeping or in idle loafing. He thinks he is resting but he is really idling.  He is not refreshing himself but making himself duller. One can also spend one’s leisure hours in such occupations as gossiping, gambling, indulging, in bad habits like drinking, smoking and whiling away the time. This is waste of time, money and energy too. It can only make a man idle; all these are abuses of leisure.

LEISURE IS MEANT TO BE SPENT IN A USEFUL WAY SO THAT WE BECOME REFRESHED FOR OUR WORK.