LEISURE, WHAT TO DO WITH IT…WHAT IT DOES TO US

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I watched a child playing the other day and he was so busy and his sister equally so. All that energy expended in the sheer joy of living and I thought how idleness is only good when it takes place after a host of doing.

It is why when someone says to me that they are about to retire I first congratulate them and then ask the question, “What are you retiring to?”

What purpose indeed? What goal that enlivens the waking up process. As beautiful as a sunrise or a sunset is it is not enough unless some of the time in between is filled with doing. They put together a psychological test recently and took two groups of people. One group volunteered to carry a package a goodly distance and a second group was told they had to carry the package the same distance.
Where it was voluntary or by demand…the group that got up and got going was happier and more content afterwards than the group that sat idly by.

The mood of idleness is negative.

The great psychologist William James put it well when he wrote, “Neither the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and severity of our breakdowns. But their cause lies, rather in that absurd feeling of hurry and having no time, in breathlessness and tension and anxiety.”

In short, sometimes we need to let our clocks run down. Sometimes we need to get so engrossed in a game we are playing, a book we are reading, or a job we are completing we don’t care what time it is.
Again, retire to what! It’s using time like we appreciate and admire it.

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To view an abundance of unusual stories by Neil Wyrick go to his other blog ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS

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