Guilt Pleasures of Leisure

I have a lot of hobbies; therefore, what I do in my free time ranges. The plethora of interests, as with most facets of life, has good and bad aspects. The positive is that I can usually find a shared interest with anyone I meet. The negative is that I also usually have certain activities that people find questionable.

Examples of my interests:

And the list goes on. However, when you dig deeper people are usually alarmed by a few things. First, the sheer number. The thought is, “do you ever commit to anything?” Additional negative reactions can and do happen:

• “Wait, how often do you watch sports?”
• “How many sports decorations do you need?”
• “Oh, you read with sports on in the background, but you read _______ (comics and young adult fiction are likely targets here even if they are a small percentage of what I read).”
• “You read how many books in a year?!? It feels like you are missing life if you read that much.”
• “You still play video games?”
• “Are you out every night?”

The last one was more applicable in my youth. But the rest have all been heard in the last year. And this brings me to my thoughts on the day: the guilty pleasure of leisure. I believe that most of us have them, or at least have a few that other people would look down on.

For myself, I might express alarm on how often someone watches TV shows regardless of the type or medium. I do watch some shows, but less than 2 hours per week.

A second area that usually raises my eyebrow is how much time someone spends on social media. And I include in this category documenting their life to later post on social media.

I choose to remind myself that we all have our guilty pleasure. Mine are chosen because I can lose myself in each one. This provides me with rare focus and helps calm my raging mind.

And the distraction is the key for me, as without the distraction my brain is constantly trying to solve problems whether they need addressed or not.

My hope is that we all take a more understanding look at the distractions of those around us. Even if they are a small collection of the Lego Architecture series act as display pieces.