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'You're Doing Your Weekend Wrong' (qz.com)
"If you don't feel rejuvenated and keen to face Monday after two work-free days, there might be a reason: You're doing your weekend wrong," an anonymous reader writes, citing a Quartz article. From the article: According to University of Calgary sociologist Robert Stebbins, most leisure falls into two categories: casual and serious. Casual leisure pursuits are short lived, immediately gratifying, and often passive; they include activities like drinking, online shopping, and binge-watching. These diversions provide instant hedonic pleasure -- quite literally, actually, as all these pastimes cause the brain to release dopamine and provide instant soothing comfort. In a culture where many people exist all week in an amped-up, overworked state, casual weekend leisure easily becomes the default for quick decompression.
But serious leisure is a far more beneficial pursuit. Serious leisure activities provide deeper fulfillment, and -- to invoke a fuzzy '70s word -- "self-actualization." Self-actualization is the pinnacle of human development, according to humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, who describes it as "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." In other words, getting self-actualized is the whole point of life, and passive, hedonistic leisure (fun and occasionally necessary as it might be) won't get you there. Instead, the weekend goal should be "eudaimonic" happiness, which is a sense of well-being that arises from meaningful, challenging activities that cause you to grow as a person. This means spending the weekend on serious leisure activities that require the regular refinement of skills: your barbershop-quartet singing, your stamp collecting, or slightly less dorky, but still equally in-depth, projects. You pursue serious leisure with the earnest tenor of a professional, even if the pursuit is amateur.
But serious leisure is a far more beneficial pursuit. Serious leisure activities provide deeper fulfillment, and -- to invoke a fuzzy '70s word -- "self-actualization." Self-actualization is the pinnacle of human development, according to humanist psychologist Abraham Maslow, who describes it as "the desire to become more and more what one is, to become everything that one is capable of becoming." In other words, getting self-actualized is the whole point of life, and passive, hedonistic leisure (fun and occasionally necessary as it might be) won't get you there. Instead, the weekend goal should be "eudaimonic" happiness, which is a sense of well-being that arises from meaningful, challenging activities that cause you to grow as a person. This means spending the weekend on serious leisure activities that require the regular refinement of skills: your barbershop-quartet singing, your stamp collecting, or slightly less dorky, but still equally in-depth, projects. You pursue serious leisure with the earnest tenor of a professional, even if the pursuit is amateur.
The typical Slashdot reader spends his weekend in his parents basement watching tentacle hentai and touching himself relentlessly. The only breaks are for sleep, using the bathroom, and calling up to his mother for more Cheetos. How does this fit into the two categories described in the article? Discuss.
It could also be that you're doing your week wrong, and you have no energy left to do anything sensible in your spare time. Are you working to live, or living to work?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Robert Stebbins works as a sociologist so I can understand his need to pursue valuable activities over the weekend, because he's sure as hell not doing anything of value during the week. However, for people with careers that allow them to do valuable, challenging work in the week, I think it's better to have a relax on the weekend.
"If you don't feel rejuvenated and keen to face Monday after two work-free days, there might be a reason: You're doing your weekend wrong,"
But it's far more likely that if you feel tired when returning to work, it is because you spent the whole weekend partying.
And if not burning the candle at both ends, then chasing around after your children: taxiing them all over the place, shopping, cleaning, tidying, doing laundry, home maintenance, cooking and walking the dog.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
Talk about taking the whole 'self improvement' thing too far. The weekend should come with a WTFPL licence.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
TL;DR: People need stamp collections like they need a hole in their head.
Serious leisure activities provide deeper fulfillment, and -- to invoke a fuzzy '70s word -- "self-actualization."
If I had time and money to get serious about leisure activities, I wouldn't be working. If I wasn't working, I'd have time to get serious about leisure activities, but I wouldn't have the money. If I earned the money I needed to build the facilities I'd need to go all professional at my leisure activities, I wouldn't have the time.
I don't feel lesser because I'm not going professional with my leisure. If I did, it would be a job, and it wouldn't be a fun distraction any more.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
My goal in life is to BE a passive hedonist, you insensitive clod!
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
"If you don't feel rejuvenated and keen to face Monday after two work-free days, there might be a reason: You're doing your weekend wrong,"
That, or you have kids.
Instead, the weekend goal should be "eudaimonic" happiness
No, the goal should be to buy condoms and build a time machine.
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I am lucky that I can bring my leisure hobby with me wherever I go. Be it at work, home, or even a baseball game, I can always take a few moments to enjoy masturbation.
Board games !
More hard, goal-driven work even on the weekend! That's what we need!
No. For a person who's already got a somewhat strenuous full-time job, I'd say that would be the best method to accelerate becoming burnt out. (And I've met burnout cases who'd fit that pattern, with therapists rather suggesting to subscribe to less strenuous, goal-directed activities at the weekends, too...)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrapharmakos
walking with smartphone in front of the nose, in subways, even school ... barely noticing other humans around and not making many friends and real life social interactions anymore, ...
In other words: internet / social media addicted.
imagine how much time for useful stuff people would have, if they put their "smart"phone aside! :-/
So refining your gaming skillz counts...
are all that. I get it.
My favorite part of weekends would be where I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever the fuck I want to without worrying about a deadline. Telling people that they're spending their time in measurably non-optimal efforts is not the way to win friends and influence people.
Aren't you the guy at work with the stapler, that I always see at the checkout line every friday with a cart full of Doritos and cheetos? Then at work monday morning, half asleep at the urinal, peeing on your shoe clutching a bright orange dick?
Towards the end of his life, Churchill wrote a little book called "Painting as a Pastime", which is all about his favorite hobby of painting. In the introductory remarks he makes the same point as the author of this article, but in a somewhat more charming and less pretentious manner. I would also point out that he didn't require a doctorate in sociology in order to arrive at this insight.
Prisons are full of the "self-actualized".
Spend a week working. Then spend a weekend working as well. Rinse and repeat. Several years of this and you are seriously start to considering putting a gun in your mouth and pulling the trigger, just to escape the cursed treadmill.
I won't read the article. Nobody tells me how to spend my weekend. If I enjoy wasting time, it's not time wasted.
Doesn't this miss the point of Mazlow's Heirarchy of Needs though?
It's all well and good to say that self-actualization's the pinnacle of human achievement, but Mazlow claimed you have to be able to satisfy the lower levels of the pyramid before you effectively have a chance to work on more ephemeral needs. People who are starving and need shelter don't have a lot of energy to spare for the need for leisure. Similarly people who have to work 9-5 probably can't afford to focus on a deep, meaningful leisure activity. They want to relax and to have some fun, because a challenging activity is too much like the work they have to do to make ends meet. The need for entertainment is on a lower level than the need for self-actualization. People aren't wrong to pursue it, they're just seeking those goals most directly relevant to their current situation.
The only people who can easily manage a challenging and highly-rewarding hobby are those whose lesser needs are fully met; those people who have rich families or who are wealthy through their own activity. They don't need to be millionaires necessarily, they just have to have sufficiency and confidence that even if things go bad, their future's still secure.
Instant gratification and hedonistic needs come above survival but below self-actualization. If a person meets basic survival needs but doesn't have hedonistic gratification, they'll seek to get laid or watch a movie or have a nice dinner out etc. Perhaps it's not as fulfilling as learning to paint, but it meets the needs they're in a position to pursue. Normal humans just aren't wired to skip levels on the heirarchy of needs, any more than they're likely to wisely put money away for the future when they're hungry now.
If weekends are supposed to be for self-actualization what is work then?
Doing it wrong they say. How about this.
MY weekends are at least partially spent doing all the household / homeowner chores and tasks I don't have time to do during the week after I get home from work.
Clean house. Aquarium maintenance, other pet maintenance. Yard related stuff. Grocery store run. Laundry. Any and all errands I need to do during the hours when I'm off and the business I need to interact with is open.
Sometimes I dread Saturday almost as much as Monday.
It's unfortunate that Maslow didn't spend more time drinking, online shopping, and binge-watching. He might have actually accomplished something of value to society.
This means spending the weekend on serious leisure activities that require the regular refinement of skills: your barbershop-quartet singing, ... You pursue serious leisure with the earnest tenor of a professional, even if the pursuit is amateur.
and even if you're an earnest tenor.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
...like those in the trades, probably best rejuvenate and relax best by working their minds. Those who work with their minds, probably best rejuvenate and relax by being more active.
I heard that somewhere, but can't give proper attribution.
Even when I was single my weekends weren't entirely work-free. In the past 20 years, my earning power has steadily waned, so evenings/weekends have been packed with side hustles and chores, with a little leisure if I was lucky.
and then has Saturday and Sunday off
Just find the thing you enjoy doing more than anything else, your one true passion, and do it for the rest of your life on nights and weekends when you’re exhausted and cranky and just want to go to bed.
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
Abraham Maslow says the weekend goal should be "eudaimonic" happiness, which is a sense of well-being that arises from meaningful, challenging activities that cause you to grow as a person.
I would "grow as a person" if Mr Maslow would shut the fuck up and mind his own business.
-Styopa
Translates to "conducive to happiness happiness" - People who use uncommon words that poorly are just using them to try to obscure that the activities they're trying to maintain as a living are not-worth-anything activities. Basically the entire purpose of sociologists.
Contrary to the submitter's statement about how good you feel about going back to work, I don't see anything in the article suggesting that these "serious leisure activities" leave you feeling better about the end of the weekend or leave you more well-rested. Just a bunch of "actualize your potential" bullshit.
As a barbershop quartet singer for over 30 years, I am gratified that they included this activity as a source of healthy living. Not a great way to pick up chicks, though. And most of our activities are on a weeknight, which kills the benefit of unwinding on the weekend.
..and come Friday you will pry my cold dark beer from my cold dead hands
"if you don’t feel rejuvenated and keen to face Monday after two work-free days, there might be a reason: You’re doing your weekend wrong."
"In a culture where many people exist all week in an amped-up, overworked state, casual weekend leisure easily becomes the default for quick decompression."
Lets just take a look at the overall message these two lines send: If you don't want to face a week of excessive over-working, it's your fault for relaxing in the "wrong" way? So the reason why I suffered a breakdown after being on minimum wage, with entire weeksworth of unpaid overtime, and filling the shoes of three different full-time company staff members (two of which had absolutely nothing to do with my skillset) for over a year wasn't because my boss was an abusive, exploitative a-hole who cared more about the two BMWs he had in his garage than his employees, it was because I wasn't out tending my garden or building a bird house on Sundays?
Anyone care to run the figures and determine if a Sociology degree holds more value when used as a fire starter vs. as toilet paper?
I'm doing it wrong - I'm reading slashdot on the weekend instead of relaxing.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Good lord that guy is pretentious. I spend my weekends the same way I spend my evenings. Doing chores, stained glass projects, playing with my kids, organizing my Lego bricks, hitting the gym, and even singing with the local SPEBSQSA chapter. But I would never say partying or binge watching a show is "doing it wrong." Everybody can decide for themselves what self-actualization means. For one of my best friends, as well as my 88 year old grandfather, partying every weekend is something they are passionate about and really enjoy doing. Why stress out about whether there is some better way to be happy?
I was just asking my wife what I should do for this 5 day weekend, and you totally solved the problem for me.
Seems to me that your brother is a good deal smarter than you are. You bust your ass to make a living, he don't do shit but what he wants all day and is getting paid for it just the same.
Let's say that the person making the most from any company shall not make more than twenty times the lowest pay in that company. And a likewise cap on total wealth: everything amassed above twenty times the average yearly income will be taxed at 100%.
If you can't live like a king on twenty times minimum income, perhaps it's time to upgrade that minimum income. Also, if you are not financially secure at twenty times the average yearly income in your checking account you have other problems than your income.
I'm pretty darned self-actualized at work. I have a very challenging and intellectually rewarding job (I'm a scientist with my own small business). I chose this after trying out a string of jobs that paid much better and came with more professional recognition, but didn't make me feel like I was actually useful. While at those other jobs I spent a lot of time on hobbies like gardening, cooking, and fiddling around with projects in my garage. I don't find I have the need or the desire to do that right now, because I don't need my social life to make me feel like I'm accomplishing something.
Choosing the correct career and job for yourself at the current particular moment is much more helpful than having the right hobbies. It makes balancing work and life easier (because social responsibilities are real) and is a must if you want to raise kids, work, and maintain your sanity simultaneously.
"after two work-free days"
Fuck you, my company is one day(Sunday) per week.
I'll decide for myself what my weekend goal should be, fuck you very much.
.....
"It was hell!" recalls former child.
If you don't feel rejuvenated and keen to face Monday after two work-free days, you might be suffering from a condition known in the medical literature as kids.
Our weekends are spent renevating our houses and properties so we can sell them for a profit.
Eat high protein, high fat, low carb organic, healthy food. Avoid anything processed.
Meditate.
Do yoga.
Boom, basic physical and mental health solved. If everyone adopted this simple lifestyle American health would change overnight. We'd crash the BigPharma BigHealthCare industries.
Or, you know, eat McSnacks and don't move too much. The choice is yours.
Lots of people on the internet who do "studies" like to tell people it's the fault of the individual with the problem. And nobody likes to blame themselves for unhappiness but when you're measuring fundamentals of resources for happiness and you see it gradually being taken away, obviously there's going to be discontent. Assuming you're not one of the more unfortunate people to work hours around a real weekend or real workday time, it could be you work such a terrible job that one weekend ain't enough to recover from it. Maybe it's doing you serious mental harm, and is not contributing barely anything next to feeding you and paying your rent, but it's all you can get. I understand the point of pursuing "deep" hobbies, but it's really a lot harder to invest in those hobbies when you're so stressed out over an unstable, nigh-unworkable job. You feel like it's not even worth doing anything other than cheap instant-enjoyment crap until you get something that makes you feel like a real human being again.
either home chores or work emails in between shows or drinks