Leisure, Health and Wellbeing: The Ultimate Quest of Humanity

Abstract

Leisure is the fountainhead of all happiness. At the same time happiness is the ultimate goal of all human beings. The search for human happiness not only begins but also ends in leisure (Modi, Leisure: A pathway to human happiness and social harmony. In Ishwar Modi, Ma Huidi & Ning Zequn (Eds.), Leisure and civilization: Interdisciplinary and international perspectives, 2010). It is equally true that both leisure and happiness are intrinsically located in the domain of good health since good health alone can lead both to wholesome leisure and wellbeing. The wish to have happiness and a life free from all diseases, which means good health, has been part of the prayers both of the common man and the sages in India for thousands of years. The following prayer brings out the essence of a happy and healthy life for the wellbeing of all human beings:

Sarve bhavantu sukhinah = may everyone be happy.

Sarve santu niramayah = may everyone be healthy and free from all diseases.

Sarve bhadrani pashyantu = may everyone see goodness and auspiciousness in everything.

Ma kaschit duhkha bhaag bhaveet = may none be unhappy or distressed and may all be free from sufferings.

Om shantih, shantih, shantih = Om peace, peace, peace!

In a nutshell, it means “May all be happy, may all be free from sickness, may all see things as being good, and may none have misery. Om peace, peace, peace!”

This is a very simple prayer applicable to one and all. This may also be the wish and desire of one and all. But the moot question is how to achieve such a state at the ontological level. It is all the more difficult to achieve such a situation in the contemporary context when people the world over are not only enjoying the fruits of development but also undergoing lots of stresses and strains caused by the prevailing social, political, economic and work conditions. While millions of people everywhere now have more leisure available to them, scores of others, on the other hand, are facing scarcity of leisure due to cut-throat competition in order to rise in the hierarchy of their professions. As such, they now have more money but much less leisure (Modi, Sociological Bulletin 61(3):386–403, 2012). Young professionals in particular do not have sufficient time to care for their health requirements and wellbeing. In such a scenario it is obvious that leisure, health and wellbeing are closely intertwined with each other, and as such it is difficult to think of one without the other. It is now well recognized that leisure offers benefits in terms of the physical, psychological, social and spiritual aspects of human wellbeing. As such it may hardly be overemphasized that leisure, health and wellbeing in unison is the ultimate quest of humanity.