Important Aspects of Leisure - Article Example

Leisure Concepts Your name Your course Date Leisure definition For something to be considered leisure it has to satisfy three major requisites which are: freedom of choice, intrinsic motivation and should be enjoyable in anticipation, participation or in recollection. An important aspect for leisure is the freedom of choice. For something to be freely chosen it generally requires time, or more importantly spare time. However it is not always possible to have spare time for leisure because we are governed by time. Since every day we have various commitments to undertake, it is only when one is through with daily chores that he/she can think of leisure (Godbey, 2007). But this doesn’t have to be the case and leisure should be allocated time just other day-to-day chores. Leisure is different for each culture and even the people within each culture. In most cases people which high income are the ones who have leisure because leisure in most cases comes with some form of spending. In essence leisure should be available to all but it seems that leisure is only available to specific people. In my own view intrinsic motivation is an important aspect of leisure and has been used in explanations of leisure fulfillment and health. An activity is likely to be experienced as leisure when such activity is intrinsically motivated and the rewards are from the participation as a result of engaging in leisure activity. If leisure activity is engaged in chiefly because of external rewards, it is motivated by outside factors and is less likely to be experienced as leisure (Bull et al., 2003). It is evident that majority of the people will tend to be intrinsically motivated if there are free to choose situations and how they behave. In the event that people’s motivation is out of other factors, they tend to search for challenges as well as internal psychological rewards from their need for self-determination and competence. Additionally, other sources of extrinsic motivation may emerge as a result of imposed goals, punishments, deadlines as well as penalties (Godbey, 2007). Social scientists argue that if an originally intrinsically motivated activity is then extrinsically rewarded .When people are rewarded or obligated to travel, play games or volunteer, their behavior can become over justified (Godbey, 2007). History of leisure and its evolution Several periods in history had a different perspective and approach to leisure which include: Hunter-gatherer societies which denotes a time where there was no distinction between work and leisure. On the other hand, during the Greek period, leisure was available to those with spare time. During the Roman period, leisure was seen as a time for preparation of the following days work. In the Middle Ages leisure time was less evident for the lower peoples of the society like serfs while during the industrial Revolution a distinction of leisure and work began to emerge. In modern world, we have industrialization which has improved transport and mechanization of most chores (Bull et al., 2003). This has reduced the amount of hours spend by man while working and created time for him to allocate to leisure. The most interesting thing is how people spend leisure in modern world. Today we have fax messages, emails, and various forms of digital data, websites and internet which broke not only physical barriers but also temporal ones. These days, virtual offices are not only spatially virtual but they are also temporally virtual (Godbey, 2007). This implies that workers in various continents and time zones can interact without difficulties. In addition workers can send their work to someone else via email for completion and allocate more time for other activities such as leisure activities. These technological advances precipitated the transmutation of the very concepts of "work" and "workplace". Work could be performed in various places by workers who work part time at their most suitable time (Stokoswki, 2004). Flexible time and work from home replaced commuting has reduced the time spend in work and created time for leisure this fitted squarely into the social fragmentation which characterizes today's world: the disintegration of previously cohesive social structures. This was neatly wrapped in the ideology of selfishness, presented as a private case of free enterprise and liberalism. People were sensitized to behave as separate, independent units and have leisure whenever they feel like (Godbey, 2007) Benefits of leisure Benefits of leisure can be classified into five categories which include: physical benefits: such as increased fitness and strength, social benefits: such as improved relationships, psychological benefits: such as improved self esteem and reduced stress, spiritual benefits: such as realizing where you are in the world and appreciating nature, economical benefits: such as stimulating local industry or saving money (Godbey, 2007). It seems all benefits of leisure are equally important. It was a good learning curve this week to find out how there are different benefits and that since not all leisure activities will include all areas it might be worth considering choosing your leisure activities based on their benefits to achieve a balance in life (Bull et al., 2003). One intriguing factor about this discussion is the possible social benefits of leisure activity. Leisure not only promotes the creation of a better society but also promotes family bonds. Setting aside time for recreation makes sure that one spends more time with family notable the elderly and little children who have special needs. Spending time with family and friends is very important as it build up relationships and ensures peaceful coexistence in the society. This integration brings about social cohesion and adds more meaning to life (Bull et al., 2003).There are many social benefits of leisure that can go unnoticed, but make a big change in the society. A society that is focused to work will not find many opportunities for the development of culture, sports, music and even art. Leisure greatly enhances opportunities for development of many social activities. Leisure activities also encourage tourism and that in turn promotes awareness of culture and history (Haworth, 2007) How leisure improves self esteem and stress reduction Self-esteem has two components; how we view ourselves and how we perceive others think of us. There are many ways to view ourselves which include: attainable self which is realistic improvement or change of ourselves, ideal self which refers to unattainable vision of ourselves, ought self which is a self we think others want us to be and lastly undesired self which refers to what we don’t desire to became (Godbey, 2007). Leisure activities in groups or with a partner help give a feeling of belonging and importance and this improves self esteem. Leisure activities that are physical or productive help promote the mastery side of self esteem as they give the feeling that something has been accomplished (Bull et al., 2003). Leisure is a chosen activity and therefore by doing a leisure activity you help reduce stress as you feel in control. Stress is reduced by two methods being direct action strategies and palliative methods. Direct action strategies alleviate or eliminate stress whereas palliative methods just divert one’s attention from stress. Stress helps you grow as a person. Stress for me can be a good thing as it will help me keep motivated to get things done. In my view, leisure helps in stress reduction. For instance, despite the small leisure stress, a leisure activity greatly reduced the overall stress which affects daily life. On the other hand, positive lifestyle development which involves contributing to humanity, communal interaction, emergency of leaders who are part of well thought-out sports all encourage good lifetime activities can indeed contribute to stress reduction (Harwoth, 2007). Being part of the leadership offers self fulfillment, and those who work in the frivolous places can take pride for ensuring that these places are available to those who need them. This helps to build up self esteem especially in children and old people, gentle exercise, cluster activities and new ideas will help create positive self images (Bull et al., 2003). History of Australian leisure There was a concentration on how leisure today has gone from predominantly organized team sports to unorganized sports. History of Australian leisure is broken up into categories being: 1788-1851, an early colonial Australia which is a time when there were a lot more men than women and no licensing laws. 1851-1901, another era when Australia became more industrialized and people became wealthy. Standards of living improved and trade unions emerged in working environments and people spend weekend were entirely for recreation. 1902-1945, a period which lead to the development of wireless form of entertainment and mechanization of most house duties and people allocated more for leisure (Bull et al., 2003). Film and cinema during this era was new form of entertainment and was embraced by many. 1945- present: Suburbia grew and with it the commonality of the quarter acre block which was characterized by recreation parks. BBQs became common and televisions slowly became a normal household item. Women’s magazines thrived and television became an instant media and thus caution began to rise. Parents feared allowing their children to go alone to school or even play outside; this was a major disadvantage to both their physical and social development (Haworth 2007). In my view, 1945 to present is an important period in Australian leisure history. Establishment of suburban parks and gardens which took place in this period assisted in defining hours of work (Godbey, 2007). These gardens encouraged people to participate in sports such as cricket, football, tennis and this made them utilize they leisure very well during week days As time passed by each suburb in Australia replicated this prototype hence leading to a positive sporting culture oriented to male-team sports(Bull et al., 2003). These current forms of physical activity started as social institution, thus fostering both genders to the public space as a result of new products (Haworth 2007). Constraints of leisure In the past the constraints to leisure have been grouped into 3 categories being; structural: influenced by time, available money, facilities, interpersonal: having suitable people to do the leisure activity with, intrapersonal: self esteem and self conscious issues restricting participation in an activity. Leisure has various constraints of which structural constraints are widely experienced by many people. These constrains differ from time to time and others are based on gender, marital status, residence and level of education (Godbey 2007). According to Godbey (2007) women face more intense leisure constraints than men, and this mainly due to not having time. They tend to suggest that women’s role within the community, women’s obligations and duties, and often limit women’s liberty to make decisions. Moreover, lack of technical skills, lack of private transport, and of monetary resources are also reported by women more intensely than men. People who are more educated tend to experience lower constraints levels while elderly people complain of greater time stress and married people report challenges related to marriage responsibilities. According to Haworth (2007), leisure constraints may affect frequency of participation in leisure activities, now and again leading even to complete failure to participation. This challenge in findings makes the current process of investigating leisure challenges more demanding. References Bull, C., Hoose, J. & Weed, M. (2003). An introduction to leisure studies. Harlow: Pearson Education. 0 582 32503X. Godbey, G. (2007). Leisure and leisure services in the 21st century. State College, Pennsylvania: Venture Publications. 0 910251 92 4. Haworth, J. T. (2007). Work, leisure and well-being. London: Routledge. 0 415 148628 6. Stokoswki, P A (2004) Leisure in society: a new perspective. London: Mansell. 0 7201 2141 8. Read More

 

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