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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."
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.
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...)
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
..and come Friday you will pry my cold dark beer from my cold dead hands
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.
So McDonald's, where they pay minimum wage AND employs some people part time (meaning: you can make $600 a month there, working 15 hours a week at $10 per hour) would have a CEO who earns no more than $12,000 per month. Seriously?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
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.
OK, so we cap income. And that helps - how? Why is income inequality bad?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
It would certainly make the CEO find a way to pay people better, now wouldn't it?
Life is not a zero sum game, either... The pie grows. Does the CEO contribute 1000 times more to the valuation of a company than a janitor? Probably. It's not about work - it's about value. So again - why is income inequality a bad thing?
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
This is how the universal wage will play out.
For every one person working their ass off, two to three people can play games, smoke weed and have babies.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
.....
"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.
Because our natural tendencies to want something better, to be competitive, to beat the next guy exist. Seeing someone do better than you is often a major, instinctual push to do better yourself. That drives innovation, creates new sources of wealth and excellence. Seeing others do better than you - not just the CEO, but your boss, and your boss's boss, or your neighbor who just bought a brand new BMW because he got a big fat raise at his job - is often the right kind of pressure to push people to excel.
Where would the tech world be without HP, Intel, Microsoft, Apple? Competition, motivation to be "better" than the others drove a lot of the early - and continuing - growth in our industry. Likewise with airplanes - Boeing had massive competition early on, but it was from that competition, the drive and desire to be better (and reap the rewards thereof) that made their planes better than everyone else's.
At the end of the day, whether you like it or not, most of our value in terms of our labor and contributions to the business are measured by dollars. What it takes to create your output, what it would cost to replace you. If you have little value - you do a job that is simple, can be easily replaced with another - you make little money. If you do a job where making a wrong call will costs tens or hundreds of millions of dollars and lose tens of thousands of jobs - you make a lot of money. At the end of the day, companies pay based upon value. Flat out.
And no, not all people have the same value to a company. Yes, you cannot make a car without the guy that puts the lug nuts on the car; but his job can be done by nearly anyone, and the value of mounting those lug nuts is tiny (because the torque and position is machine-controlled) relative to the value of the guy who styled the body, designed the ECM, or chose to green-light the entire hundred-million dollar project.
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
For every one person working their ass off, two to three people can play games, smoke weed and have babies.
I think you nailed the problem: indeed, there should be nobody having to work their ass off. The work needed for sustaining human lives needs to be done mostly by machines. People will only work their ass off if that's what they really want, and not because the alternative is die of hunger.
Theoretically, this can work; getting there however would be difficult. Existing structures and ideologies will resist changes. It may sound difficult to believe, but I even think some folks will insist people should waste their lives in the drudgery of pointless boring "work", as if this is somehow morally better than letting them chose to live their lives as they want to (like, for example, playing games).
Changing technology is always easy. It's just changing workflows that's nearly impossible. Changing peoples minds will take generations.
Good luck with that.
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
The problem is not how clear you are, but that you make no sense. Let's take an easy example, the lefts favorite whipping boy, Walmart. The average employee is low paid, but the CEO makes $21M. Clearly an outrage, right?
My understanding of your position is that if he was not making $21M, that money would be used to get his employees out of poverty, and that his $21M represents 'most of the proceeds', and the rest of the employees are living off 'crumbs'.
Let's make the insane assumption that every employee, other than the CEO, makes $8/hr, works half time (1000 hrs/yr), and has no benefits (paid time off, insurance, employee discounts, etc) at all. Since they have 2.1M employees, that means a payroll of $16.8B. The CEOs compensation represents 1/8 of 1% of the payroll. Please explain how that is 'most of the proceeds' and the 99 and 7/8% of money going to the employees is 'the crumbs'.
Now, as for cutting his compensation and using that money to get the employees out of poverty. If you cut his compensation to $0, and distribute it to the employees, you have given each employee $10. Per YEAR. Are you really going to claim that $10/yr is the difference between poverty and not poverty?