The Importance of Leisure
This essay is more like a personal reflection than a social comment.
I never really treasure my leisure time.
When I am not working or studying, I also feel I am not doing anything productive or important. In one of the calls with my friend, I asked him what did he do today and he told me that he did nothing, and then he elaborates that he got up late and watched youtube videos and ended the day with playing video games. So in his mind, sleeping+wacthing videos +playing video games=nothing. Not just him, I often feel guilty for not enjoying my leisure time.
My conscience will only rest when I am consistently doing things that might be beneficial to my future. Ever since coronavirus took of the land, I became less busy and almost boring. Like my friend, I spend plenty of watching videos. My conscience (also my mom) forced me to stop wasting time and started to read more books, work out more, studying how to use new software. Time pasts very fast. I grow from a baby to an adult now almost instantly. With the fear that my 20s will past instantly, I always full my life with different tasks. I almost believe that my time will last longer if I am more productive and my life will be meaningful.
Not until recently, I realized the importance of leisure. I started the summer with only WRIT340 and an internship with very minimal work. I feel I could do more and be more productive with this time so I enrolled in a GRE prep class. The class lasts from 5–9 pm with 5 hours workload every day. This time I completely empty out my leisure time. The work is hard but manageable. However, I found out I lost my ability to think. I was working the Medium publication a few days ago and I couldn’t generate any insightful thoughts. Because I don’t have the time to think. You might think that I am thinking all day because I am studying all day. On the contrary, study and thinking are quite different. One is absorbing knowledge and the other one is producing thoughts. I would argue at least to me that producing thoughts is harder. Producing deep and meaningful thinking needs time. When you stuff your life with different tasks, you lost your time to think.
Maybe enjoying leisure time does not necessarily help you secure your amazing job offer, but it does provide your brain a resting time. Thinking is something that comes slow and deep. Maybe instead of using our time to the maximum, we need to slow down and just do nothing so we have the ability to think deeper.
