Enjoyment-Leisure Activity - Assignment Example

JOURNAL Student Institution Course Lecturer Date Week 1 The first week's lecture focused on establishing the actual definition of the term leisure. Leisure has been perceived differently in diverse situations. However, for an activity to be classified as leisure, it needs to have the following three aspects: Freedom of choice - The leisure activity need to be chosen freely and should not be part of individual, family, work or social responsibility Intrinsically motivating - leisure activity need to be inbuilt and not initiated or activated by external forces. Enjoyment - leisure activity should initiate a sense of enjoyment to the person perfuming it. Leisure has in this case been defined in depth where a number of aspects have been considered in this definition. After a comprehensive reading of the provided notes and other materials, I realized that I have been having a shallow definition of the term leisure. To me, leisure included activities we do during our free time. In this definition, I just considered the freedom of choice since it eliminated the aspect of obligation. However, it did not consider the other two aspects, although, I now realizes that they are always present when I am enjoying my leisure. I always do what I like most during my leisure time and by the end of it all, I always feel happy and satisfied. Although I have never thought of what motivates me into doing it, I am sure it is not an external force. I normally do it because of the pleasure it gives me at the end of it all. I am really pleased by understanding a standard definition of leisure, which fits my actual experience during my leisure time. Leisure has extensively been related with freedom of choice. Time that one command without having to consider obligation or anyone else expectation. According to (Veal, 1992. p.47), leisure is identified as an activity that entails pursuit of self-understanding and truth. It is regarded as an act of philosophical, religious, psychological and aesthetic contemplation. Leisure involves living in comparative freedom from exterior compulsive physical and cultural environment forces in order to operate from internally persuasive love in manners that are intuitively worth, personally pleasing, and give a foundation for faith. Therefore, in my opinion freedom of choice always gives someone an inner joy of doing what makes a person happy in life. When this freedom of choice is not there, one can only do what is required by others or the environment and thus, making sacrifices to make a task accomplished. Week 2 Leisure has evolved with time. There was time that leisure was not recognized. However, its importance has been seen as working hours became more distinct in history. The second week's learning centred on the history of leisure. This involved six major periods in history. These periods include: Hunter and gatherer - There was no clear distinction between work and leisure during this time in history. Greek - Leisure was recognized, but in a discriminative way. It was only allowed to individuals in upper class. This was defined as a time to realize the cultural ideas, knowledge resulting to conduct and virtuous choices and that eventually results to true happiness and pressure. Rome - The importance of leisure was recognized by all including the government. People were provided leisure as their time to rest to be able to work in the following day. The government used this time for its political advantages by entertaining the population. Europe in middle ages - Leisure was recognized especially in the east. It reflected the feudalism class structure. However, leisure was overshadowed by religious celebrations. Industrial revolution - work time distinction was defined. This resulted to the generation of free time. Leisure time was later defined and it turned into a considerable right in the working class. Modern society - This period was characterized by a number of technological advancement that eased the work and thus, offering people more time for leisure. The most interesting part of this week's lecture is that the world seems to be going back to times when leisure was not known. Although we already have definition and theories of leisure, the economic pressure and need for a better life are currently limiting the leisure time. Most individuals are taking second jobs during their defined resting time. This clearly shows that there are people who do not spare a single minute to rule their time. This is quite challenging to the modern society. Normally, it is expected that people will keep on embracing and implementing evolutions that suits their life. However, this is not the case. Leisure was more embraced during industrial revolution that it is today. It was regarded as right during that time, but it is currently not being recognized. This is even after understanding the advantages associated with leisure. This observation concurs with Whitlam (1972, p.1) proposal that effective employment of leisure would be the major social problem in the future. Week 3 Leisure has been associated with a number of benefits in life. This week's lecture centred on the benefits of leisure in life. There are five classes of benefits identified in this lecture. They include: Physical benefit - this normally happens when one do physical activities during the leisure time. It helps in ensuring strength and fitness. Social benefit - leisure activities normally takes place in social places and thus, promoting social relations. Economic benefit - the desire to travel and to have a great leisure time in different places or in different ways encourages people to save and to work harder, improving the economic development of individuals and nation at large. Spiritual benefit - nature walk promotes self-searching and meditation and thus, promoting spiritual growth. It also helps in appreciation of nature and God's role in creation. Psychological benefit: physical activities help in improving the blood flow and thus, reducing stress, leisure walks and meditation during leisure time improves the psychological health. Leisure also assists in improving self-esteem. This week's learning gave me a broader view of leisure benefits. I was well aware of leisure contribution to social, physical and psychological benefits, but I never considered leisure contribution to spiritual and economic benefits. Although I knew very well that some leisure activities would demand the use of funds, I never thought that this would push an individual into putting more effort into his or her work to earn more, just to fund a leisure activity. Maybe, this is because I never considered tourism as one of leisure activities. However, it now makes more sense to me. Besides, there are more leisure activities that would demand funds including snowballing. Similarly, I never considered the spiritual benefits of leisure. I used to associate them with psychological benefits. This lecture taught me that one can use religion as a leisure activity based on how much it satisfies the person. Religious believes are normally associated with a number of psychological benefits and thus, this can be considered as an integrated leisure benefit. According to Heintzman (2009, p.423) faith based recreation activities are associated with character development that match to ability to connect with oneself and others. This is an aspect of spiritual well-being and also a social benefit. Therefore, in my opinion, spiritual benefit of leisure provided integrated benefits that include social and psychological benefits. Week 4 Leisure involves a number of activities that can assist in moulding an individual physically, socially, psychologically, economically and spiritual to be a better person and thus, improve one's self-esteem. This week's lecture focused on leisure contribution in enhancing self-esteem. According to the lecture, self-esteem acts as a drive to one's life success. It is composed of two components that include Me and I. I entail the way we see ourselves, while Me involves the way we consider that others see us. It basically involves what we hate about ourselves, what we would like to be to please others, what we can achieve to be happy with ourselves whether realistic or unrealistic. Self-esteem is like a basic need in life. A high self-esteem gives one confidence to fight and overcome major life challenges. In this week's lesson, I realized that leisure benefits can play a huge part in boosting oneself esteem. Leisure promotes physical health which results to fitness. Therefore, leisure can help one to avoid discriminative physical appearance such as obesity which lowers their self-esteem, especially where one has to face prejudice due to his or her body size. Leisure also assists in reducing stress and promoting self-worth via spiritual and psychological benefits of leisure. In so doing, one is able to embrace the positive side of life and self and thus, eliminating self-discrediting thoughts, which can interfere with one's self esteem. Leisure also promotes the development of social relations especially among youths and teenagers who value peer groups more than any other age group. Acceptance in these groups improves the individual's view of how others see them and build the inner confidence regarding themselves. This assist in building a strong positive view based on how others associate with the person. Acceptance in these groups improves one sense of belonging and thus, making one values him or herself more than before. After reading Schwarzenegger et al. (2005, p.21), I realized that the employment of physical activity based leisure activity contribute in generating a feeling control over the life of an individual. This assists in building self-confidence and eventually one's self-esteem. This creates a guarantee that one will be able to face life challenges with a more positively and with enough confidence to overcome these challenges. Week 5 Most countries have had a different experience on the evolution of their working time and resting time. Australia is no exception. This week's lecture focused on the history of Australia of leisure. According to the lecture, Australia experienced hard labour between 1788-1851and hence hard leisure characterized by alcohol, gambling and irresponsible sexual behaviour. Between 1851 and 1901, the country was able to create a distinction of the working hours, resting hours and recreation hours. At this time there were a number of acceptable non-social activity though, there was more formalized leisure activities. Between 1902 and 1945 the country experienced technological growth. More manual work was taken over by machinery, creating more free time. More friendly leisure activities were adapted, with homes being site for some leisure activities. From 1945 to present, the country has experienced major technological and social changes. More defined leisure activities have been employed. Moreover, people are more considering outdoor leisure activities than before. In this week's lecture, I realized that Australia has experienced a number of major changes in its labour industries from 1880s to date. These major changes were characterized by the stage of technological development. In addition, I realized that the work hardship defined the kind of leisure to be adopted. I was surprised by the fact that hard labour went hand in hand with hard leisure, and as the work became easier, Australians were able to adapt more friendly and healthy leisure activities. This is a clear indication that work stress can be directly related to measures people employ to curb stress. This was quite unexpected, I never considered the identified hard leisure activities as ways people can spend their leisure time. The lecture also made me understand migration contribution in the change of adapted leisure activities in the region. As more people with more diverse culture, interest and experience migrated to Europe, types of leisure embraced by people changed. Australians were initially dominated with acceptable non-social activities practiced during their leisure time. However, this changed to more friendly techniques as cultural integration took place. Actually, after the distinction of the working, resting and recreation time took place in 1901, the only other major changes that were experience in leisure was change of activities from non-social to more social and from in-house activities to out-door activities. According to (Office for Recreation and Sports, 2011, p.5), there are a number of modern social recreation activities in Australia today. These activities are normally conducted out-doors and they involve groups, as a way of promoting social ties in the society. References Heintzman, P., 2009. The spiritual benefits of leisure. Leisure/Loisir, 33(1), p. 419-445. Office for Sport and Recreation, 2011. Trends in recreation and sport. Active for life. Government of South Australia. [Online] Available at: < https://www.recsport.sa.gov.au/sport-active-recreation/documents/Trends%20in%20Recreation%20and%20Sport%20Participation%20Final.pdf> [Accessed on 12th April, 2015]. Veal, A. J.,1992. Definitions of leisure and recreation. Australian Journal of Leisure and Recreation, 2(4), p. 44-48. Whitlam, G., 1972. Australian Leisure (Tony Veal & Rob Lynch). [Online] Available at: [Accessed on 12th April, 2015]. Schwarzenegger, A., Chrisman, M. and Coleman, R., 2005. The health and social benefits of recreation: An element of the California outdoor recreation planning program. California State Parks. Read More