Life is like a ten speed bicycle. Most of us have gears we never use.

Charles M. Schulz

How do you spend your leisure? Do you watch television? Do you surf the web? There are many ways you can spend your spare time. But is it really possible to get more out of your time off? Not just making this time more productive, but actually making it more enjoyable. Actually, the answer goes against¹ what many of us have been taught about how to spend our free time.

Breaking the Work / Play Distinction

From early childhood we’ve been taught to divide everything to do into two groups, work and leisure. Work consists of all the things we need to do and leisure is everything else. Splitting² the world this way isn’t necessarily wrong. But the subtle³ message contained in this split is that work and leisure shouldn’t resemble⁴ each other. Your work needs to be productive, efficient and challenging. Therefore leisure should be relaxing, accomplish nothing and be free of pressures.

Why This Kills Your Free Time

The belief⁵ that the most enjoyable moments of life are spent relaxing in the fruits of our labour doesn’t match the real world. Research has shown that the most enjoyable moments of our life are the ones where we are most engaged.A psychologist and author, Mihály Csíkszentmihályi⁶, who has devoted his life’s work to the study of what makes people truly happy, satisfied and fulfilled, recorded this phenomenon. Armed with a scientific approach to measure experiences (ESM – Experience Sampling Method) Csíkszentmihályi found that people were happiest when most absorbed in their activities.

Csíkszentmihályi originally studied artists and noticed it wasn’t the end-product most good painters were after⁷, it was the process of painting. He was surprised to see painters finish a painting and immediately set up another canvas to continue painting – without even looking at the masterpiece they had just created. This intrigued him and so he has spent his lifetime exploring this interesting and enjoyable state he calls “flow”⁸.

According to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. The researcher describes flow as “being completely involved in an activity for its own sake⁹. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz. Your whole being is involved, and you’re using your skills to the utmost¹⁰.” People whose activities are in a state of flow are using high levels of skill and challenge together to create an experience that is rich and personally beneficial.

Fill Your Spare Time with High-Challenge Activities

Csíkszentmihályi has found that people feel at their best when they indulge in high-challenge and high-skill activities (like demanding work, playing a game, pursuing a hobby) and feel at their worst when they indulge in low-challenge, low-skill activities (like watching TV). Most often people enter a flow state when they engage in their favourite activities, whether playing or working. Csíkszentmihályi suggests that by paying close attention to what we do every day, and how we feel doing it, we can learn to maximize these positive moments and thus improve our spiritual or psychic wellbeing.

The researcher shows the correlation between the choices people make and the quality of their lives. He argues that a life filled with “flow activities” is more worth living than one spent consuming passive entertainment. Happiness is derived from personal development and growth – and flow situations permit the experience of personal development. The point is to be happy while doing things that stretch your goals and skills, that help you grow and fulfil your potential.

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¹ go against – идти вразрез

² split – разделять, делить на части

³ subtle – неуловимый, тонкий; едва различимый

⁴ resemble – походить, иметь сходство

⁵ belief – убеждение

⁶ Mihály Csíkszentmihályi (Михай Чиксентмихайи) – один из авторитетных психологов мира, известный по своим исследованиям тем счастья, креативности, субъективного благополучия, автор нескольких бестселлеров по позитивной психологии

⁷ be after – стараться получить что-л.

⁸ flow – поток, потоковое состояние

⁹ for its own sake – ради нее самой

¹⁰ to the utmost – в высшей степени, предельно