For a long time, leisure was considered negative. ” He’s the mother of all addictions,” some said. The idea that free time was negative was extended by the interests prevailing in the industrial era. possible and, therefore, this kind of ideology became popular, according to which the only laudable thing in life was to work.
Producing more and more to generate more surpluses has led to uncontrolled industrial activity. Consequences include significant environmental destruction and a significant reduction in workers’ quality of life. This life only to work due to more and more physical and mental illnesses. For this reason, leisure began to be claimed not only as a right, but also as a duty.
“Leisure and leisure is the best of all acquisitions. “Socrates?
Now thanks to science we know that rest is as fundamental as work, the brain and the whole body need periods of calm to function properly, those who rest as many times as they work are more productive, creative and healthy. has not been educated for both leisure and work.
As we know, there was a time when the right to rest was limited to a minimum margin, there were no employment rights, established working hours or legal minimum wage, employers had no problem hiring employees for 14 hours or more. they paid what they wanted.
There were many unemployed, so workers accepted these totally unfair conditions. In turn, trade unions and trade unions began to emerge in various parts of the world. Workers around the world have fought for fundamental and universal rights. allowed us to reach the famous three-eight scheme: 8 hours of work, 8 hours of rest and 8 hours of family life.
In many countries this system is still maintained, although conditions of semi-slavery persist in different parts of the world, the important thing here is to remember that this is a right acquired with many struggles, which have cost several lives. Voluntarily giving up a right means contributing to it becoming dead letter and eventually disappearing.
Giving space to leisure in our lives is an act of self-esteem; is part of the personal care that each of us must have. Rest is a responsibility we have with us if we value our health and well-being. This seems like a very obvious truth, but in today’s world, it has been neglected. The internalization of obligations is so strong that many people cannot bear to have free time during which they must not hold anyone accountable.
Bertrand Russell, the famous English thinker, shed a lot of light on the subject of leisure, in one of his texts he gives an interesting example, which defines a scenario in which a group of factories produces all the pins needed for a country. employing 100 workers, 8 hours a day. As a result, a technology appears that generates the same production, but in half the time. What should happen and what’s really going on?
Russell says that in this hypothetical case, what happens is that many workers are laid off, either because less labor is needed or because some companies fail. What should happen, he says, is that the same workers and factories only work half the time. That way everyone would win, because they would keep selling the same thing, at the same price.
Today, the consumer society has changed the priorities of many people, it is not simply about working to adequately meet basic needs, but about having a surplus to consume: buying things, whether they are necessary or not. buy and pay.
That’s why many are willing to work more than reasonably, they need more money because the market is insatiable, there will always be a more attractive offer than the other, the one who has clothes wants new clothes, the one who has a house wants a bigger one, the one who has a car wants a plane.
Consumption, in turn, generates a closed lifestyle: it is worked to consume and consumed to work. Free time is used for shopping or consumption, thinking about free time sometimes doesn’t make sense to many, in fact it bothers them.
However, it is not a healthy thing. It is important to value our free time, because it is in it that we come into contact with the truer of ourselves and life.