The Elder and the Creature
Once, a creature called man, wished do more than just look at how the sun it came from the east and how it was hidden at its other end.
At that precise moment, a wise old man He approached and said:
- If you want to do something for yourself and others like you,
just walk this road next to me.
The creature got up and accompanied the old man.
He walked beside her without stopping for a minute. I watched, at to walk the new road, how the trees paid off and the meadows were dyed of beautiful and differentiated colors.
Sometimes they had shades of white, other times ocher and in many others, green and multicolored.
In an instant of the path, the man told the Unknown and silent elder: - I feel that every time we move forward, we go through the same place; although the landscape is never the same.
- It's true ... the old man replied.
- And what is it that makes everything change when passing in front of me? the man asked.
- The work of Nature, he answered smilingly the wise old man.
- And this road, where does it take me? Insisted the creature
human - Where you want to go! exclaimed the old man,mwhile walking away slowly.
Man, just perceiving the silhouette of the old man, he asked his last question, raising his voice to that the wise man would listen: - Who are you?
- Well, my name is "TIME".
Unknown author
It is timely to say that 24 hours a day, they can be divided as follows:
- 8 hours for Rest;
- 8 hours to dedicate them to the Work:
- 8 hours to express ourselves in the "Creative Leisure".
If in the present reality this distribution of time is not carried out, I suggest taking this division as an appropriate generality. In these three stages of the day, we could say that the human being has greater possibilities of being in EQUILIBRIUM and that all excess It would break this precious harmony that we desire. In other words, all excess is imbalance.
The 8 hours allocated to Rest:
After daily activities, our body needs a time of rest, which we generally call "sleep". Lack of sleep negatively affects the good performance and mood of people.
Sleeping is a state by which our body recovers the energies, which have been worn out during the day and allows us to be more harmonious. According to medical studies, sleep prevents cardiovascular diseases. Research from Stanford University (USA), tells us that "sleep seems to be the best indicator of how long a person will live." If an adult sleeps more than 8 hours, it is likely to suffer some type of alteration. organic or mental; also if we work more than the account as it usually happens in these times, either by necessity or to cover existential gaps (or cover gaps), affecting our well-being.
The 8 hours to dedicate them to the Work:
More than 8 hours of daily work, significantly damages our health and reduces the productive capacity and motivation. The investigations carried out in 1994 by the German Office for Worker Protection, came to verify that the highest performance and efficiency is achieved by reducing working hours to 6 hours a day, with a maximum of 40 hours a week. With the increase in working hours are also consistent the sufferings such as the famous current scourge of urbanizations: the "stress"; In addition to general fatigue, insomnia and also insufficiencies heart diseases, among other health problems.
I always commented that work today is seen as a "business". Today it is really considered as a "virtue" and this has caused much harm to humanity. Since I have use of reason, the elders said that "leisure is the father of all vices" and how much lies in all this. So much so that, in the Greek apogee, there was a space of time destined to "leisure". This time was dedicated to the expression of Being. Leisure was practiced daily, to take care of body and mind, through games and recreation, sports, reading and expression in the arts, as well as reflection and philosophical conversations. Then, at the beginning of the Roman domain, leisure was denied, to give more interest to the labor activities ... Thus, the word NEG-LEISURE arises. If today they suggested that we carry out activities that stimulate "creative leisure", possibly - after being so used to dedicating so many hours to work - we would get bored or we would not know what to do in that time.
8 hours for the "Creative Leisure".
The Greeks considered leisure as one of the paths to Wisdom and their means of approaching it was "contemplation" (con-temper).
For Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 BC), leisure was one of the doors of access to happiness, considered the ultimate goal in life. It is a leisure that seeks tirelessly the "spiritual awakening" and NOT to find a way to "increase and strengthen the labor productivity.
Creative leisure, taken as a time that we allow ourselves to experience fully, allows us to give ourselves the possibility of re-discovering the essence of our Being.
This space of time, in fact, rescues the inner balance of each one of us; it allows us a better relationship with others, having a greater integration with the environment and increasing our emotional capacity.
To work the "creative leisure", it is necessary to break the barriers of the daily routine that is often sedimented. Taking the commitment with this part of the time dedicated to leisure, invites us to do a "self-therapy".
We will begin to experience greater enthusiasm and our mind will feel lighter, without heaviness.
Creative leisure encourages the generation of healthy experiential experiences with oneself, with our environment and with nature. It clearly stimulates our virtues and talents and perhaps, for many of us, to discover them in a frame of joy and permanent renewal.
In fact, creative leisure is healthy and activates the mechanisms of inner self-healing. It is, then, about committing ourselves to a new learning that leads us to achieve bio-psycho-social integrity; promoting imagination, creativity, play, relationships affective, art, physical activity, philosophical reflections and the encounter with the interior gaze.
I could say that one of the pillars of creative leisure is "freedom", since we have it to develop fully.
Now, DO NOT confuse "LEISURE" with "LAZINESS". Leisure has been associated with laziness, without one concept having to do with the other.
Laziness is a mental attitude. It is also considered one of the 7 deadly sins. In the Bible, in Proverbs 6: 6-11, it refers to the lazy with this teaching:
"Go to the ant, O lazy, look at his ways, and be wise, which having no captain, nor governor, nor lord, prepares his food in the summer, and gathers in the time of harvest his maintenance. How long will you sleep? When will you wake up from your sleep? A little sleep, a little slumber, and a little crossing of your hands to rest, so your need as a walker will come, and your poverty as an armed man. "