Tracing the leisure in “Leisure time”???...Stop tracing, start living!!!

Have you ever thought of how methodical and routine our lives become? So much so, that many a times we leech out all the leisure and fun out of our “leisure time”. The exact dictionary meaning of the word leisure means – time off, relaxation, ease…It means freedom. Leisure should be spontaneous; the true essence of the word leisure can be experienced that way!

People working in most of the big and small corporate firms these days, are used to their ever so disciplined work routines that they tend to apply the same pattern elsewhere in their lives. Each one of us always feels this urge to preplan almost everything in our life. We plan when to kick-off the new project, we plan how to start working on it, we plan who all would be working on what modules, and we plan how to meet the deadlines & submit the project. Okay...that sounds fine enough! But then we also plan when and where to arrange a party, what time to call the guests, what food to order, from where to order, what music to play and the list goes on….Thank God no one decides on footsteps to be followed if it’s going to be a dance party ! This reminds me of how the character Sameer in the movie Dil Chahta hai gets irked when he knows that Pooja’s boring boyfriend gifts her with a balloon everyday at the signal as a token of their love & has made it a routine.

In big IT firms, like ours, there’s this big discussion over what people are “planning” to do on their weekends. We plan when and where to go out for the weekend, where to eat out, where to “Chill out” :P…We plan how much time we’ll chill out and how much of it we’ll soak up in the sun waiting for the bus, to go back home, in a tropical climate with generous layers of CO2 piled up before the Ozone. We also plan what movie to go for, where to meet up to go for the movie, what place to go to next if we get bored in the interval time :P. After we get back home AND having gone to the gym ON TIME, we sit and think what needs to be posted on the team’s blog & who’s “TURN” it is next to make the team coolest :P :D Do we need to plan all this??? We really don’t! We plan all the fun things in our lives way too much beyond anyone including the Almighty would expect us to!!!

I was asked by my mum the other day “What does the word Chillax mean exactly???, why do people of your generation use it so often & how did it originate?” I proudly imparted knowledge of “our generation” & explained to her the etymology of the word & told her it meant Chill + Relax = Chillax. And, while I was enlightening the ignorant from another generation, it struck me… We use these words very often these days, but we actually need to apply them in the way we lead our life. We really need to chill and relax, especially if it’s anything to do with our leisure time and hours of recreation. It’s time we stop tracing out ways and means to increase our “kewl” quotient, chalking out methods & setting deadlines for any kewl activity. We just need to feel the “kewlness” in life, enjoy the small things & spontaneity of the fun times in life.