Leisure

Meaning

Leisure is the time we spend in amusing and relaxing after doing some hard physical or intellectual work.

Relaxation gives us rest and enables us to have long deep breaths in our lungs to retrieve our lost energy. Thus the blood circulation is properly streamlined and our bones feel the much-wanted relief.

In the modern age of stress and hurry, the people generally do not know the real value of leisure and relaxation. Thus, the famous poet W.H. Davies says

“What is this life if full of care? We have no time to stand and stare.”

To retrieve our lost energy

There was a time when people lived in the lap of nature to feel happy and find pleasure in the natural phenomena which also taught them the lesson of natural innocence, love and affection, and humility and provided man the true lesson of wisdom and nature of man. This is what the famous poet of the Romantic Revival period in England says,

“One impulse from the vernal wood May teach you more of man,

Of moral evil and of good Than all the sages can.”

Indeed, some kind of amusement or relaxation is required by everybody after any kind of hard and strenuous work. For instance, the travellers going across the Arabian Desert, heave a sigh of relief as they reach an oasis, as they give rest to tired limbs there and hear the soothing voice of a nightingale among the trees in the oasis.

Some examples of spending leisure time

There can be several means of spending one’s leisure time. For example, some of such means are gardening, stamp collecting, reading novels and other books, photography, seeing movies, meeting friends and relatives, teaching adults or children or the handicapped, and so on.

One more useful method of spending leisure time is meditation: Meditation is a mechanical way of controlling one’s breath, muscles, heart, brain and the nervous system as also body muscles and tissues. It can probably be learnt from a specialist and under his supervision and guidance.

In its higher aspects, meditation is related to yoga, it not only gives physical pleasure and health but also spiritual satisfaction and fulfillment.

Objective

Thus, the main objective of leisure is only relaxation and not the attainment of knowledge about oneself or about others but in the process, we get so many other good things as by-products.