SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING (Leisure, A Blessing or a Curse)

This book was published in 1996 and has been read by and still fills thousands of libraries. I am now making it available for you my friends of this blog. From time to time used copies are available on amazon.com

 

"I never took a vacation in twenty years." And there was pride on his weary face. "But now 1 take a nap after lunch every day," and though it makes him feel better, he still feels guilty.

 

Long ago we were taught that when we became adults it was time to really buckle down. Fun was for little kids.

The world is still filled with people who are down right neurotic about having fun. Who feel that anything other than work is a sin. Who suffer from what I call fun phobia? 

If it promotes health, they allow themselves to exercise. If it enriches their mind, they allow themselves to read.

They are professional killjoys practicing a strange perversity that says, as long as they are not really enjoying themselves, it is all right to have fun.

This is a twentieth century phenomenon.

A century ago the problem did not exist. The average worker spent seventy hours a week at work and died at forty. Now we average forty hours a week at work and live till seventy. That is 1500 more hours a year of leisure time, or 33,000 more hours in a lifetime.

However, as Robert Lee wrote in his book, Religion and Leisure in America, "The mood of leisure is affirmative. The mood of idleness is negative."

Pure unadulterated indolence, twenty-four hours a day, can kill a man or woman. 

One answer is to stop thinking of work as what you give and leisure as what you receive. 

These two facets of life are not like oil and water, unable to mix. They can coexist. They both give blessings and problems. They are both necessary to life and living. 

Whether the work is a vocation or avocation, there is a certain satisfaction in producing.

Leisure fulfills its purpose for giving relaxation, a healing.
When you and I are having fun we freeze time. We forget worries. We are lost in the frolic of the moment and, oh, what it does for our mental, emotional and physical health!

Unless you must win.

Indeed, the last time you played a game did you ruin your fun time by wanting to win so badly you couldn't just play for the joy of it? When I played tennis. I played hard. I played to win. But most of all, I played to play. (the old hamstring gave out so thereby went my tennis)

When I lost it is not as if I just lost half of Europe in a battle. So never believe you are too old to play, nor too young to stop and smell the roses.

William James penned, “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 w don’t care what time it is.”

Leisure time needs to be a goal that glistens with the excitement of always having more than one thing you want to do or see, or be.

We must not overwhelm ourselves with too much, but neither must we underwhelme ourselves with too little. Horizons are for sunrises, not sunsets.

WORTH REMEMBERING

If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.

-J. F. Clarke The diamond cannot be polished without friction, nor a man perfected without trials. -Chinese proverb

Nobody knows the age ofthe human race, but all agree that it is old enough to know better. -Anonymous

A diplomat is a person who remembers a woman's birthday but forgets her age. –Anonymous

Perfectionist -one who takes great pains and give them to other people. -Changing Times

The Lord gave you two ends; one for sitting and one for thinking. Whether you are a success depends on which you use: head you win, tail you lose. -Anonymous

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To access his other book’s; BOUNDARIES UNLIMITED, RUST ON MY SOUL, POOR RICHARD’S ALMANAC, I AM SIXTY PLUS AND NOT HOLDING, THE ABC’S OF PARENTING AND GRANDPARENTING, LETTERS TO AMERICA…go to Amazon.com (books) and type in Neil Wyrick.
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A HEAVENLY CONSTRUCTION PROGRAM(1st in series) (on this WyrIck’s Writing blog)

“I have always been intrigued by a question God put to Adam, “Where are you?” Why did He ask that? What is the meaning behind this? It wasn’t a geographical question, for certainly God knew the answer to that one.
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BELOW IS A QUOTE FROM the SERIES on this Wyrick’s Writings site entitled ANGER IS A KILLER. 

 “Do you enjoy visiting friends? More than likely you’re thinking, Preacher, of course, I do.

Now let me ask the other side of the coin - Do you enjoy visiting enemies? No?

Well, I know you must enjoy visiting at least one enemy because, like myself, you probably visit this one quite often. Unfortunately, we all …visit this enemy…whose name is anger.
Some visit anger seldom . Some on a regular basis. And during those visits, some spew and others stew.”

TO WATCH NEIL WYRICK IN HIS ONE MAN DRAMAS (Presented to millions all around the world) (Ben Franklin, Martin Luther, Charles Wesley and Abraham Lincoln (this Lincoln film takes 11 seconds to download but is worth the wait)

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING
http://www.speakerneil.com/


http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html

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