Leisure = happiness.
It’s part remnant of the baby boomer’s prescription for happiness, part new hype of the millennial generation.
I think I’m not the only one who’s been sold on this lie. The idea that leisure equates to happiness has been a central part of whatever the current recipe for happiness was for the past 2,000 years.
Let’s just look at the last three generations.
For Baby Boomers, what they had to do for a happy life was made utterly clear by society:
Go to school.
Go to college.
Get a job.
Work hard for 40 years.
Retire at 60.
Chill for 20 years.
Die.
Generation X saw an accelerated version of that:
Go to school.
Get an MBA.
Work wherever you can rise the fastest, preferably in finance.
Work extremely hard for 5–10 years.
Retire at 40.
Chill for 40 years.
Die.
For Millennials, the whole thing is becoming a lot more confusing:
Do whatever the fuck you want, because you’re entitled to success anyway.
Work only to be able to buy experiences, the stuff you really need and whatever you want right now.
Don’t settle for projects and work that might only win in the long run.
Don’t defer happiness, aka leisure, until your retirement.
Live every day as if it was your last one.
Well, a smart dude named Steve Jobs once said:
“If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right.”
Here’s the thing about all generations:
The recipe is always shit.
It doesn’t matter what the current pattern is. What society tells you when it’s your turn. Because there’s no such thing as a recipe for happiness.
For me, the most disturbing thing these three (and many recipes before them) have in common is that work is treated as a means to an end in one way or the other. But…
What if I don’t want to treat work that way?
What if I like working, regardless of what I’m doing?
What if I never want to retire?
What if working, doing, moving forward makes me happy? Regardless of the end goal.
What if I don’t see work and leisure as a permanent trade-off?
What if they’re just two sides of the same coin?
I’m sick of having the rest of the world tell me what’s supposed to make me happy. I’m coming up with my own recipe for happiness. One that works just for me. No one else.
Right now, I think it looks like this:
It’s going to change a lot over time. Just like yours will.
Whatever it includes, whether that’s leisure, work, family, people, experiences, or things, remember: the recipe that’s being sold to you is always shit.
Now go and make your own.
"Do whatever the fuck you want, because you’re entitled to success anyway."
Are you though?