Before previous Deepavali, my mother and I decided to paint a few walls of our house and do some stencil designs on them. Though we had no experience, we managed to do the work like professionals. Painting the walls ourselves was much more gratifying than hiring someone to do the work. It was a nice way of entertainment, and we ended up doing something creative as a bonus.
From this, I realised the importance of active entertainment and the various ways to accomplish it. Travelling, sports and music are conventionally considered the most common forms of active entertainment. But, even inside home, we can find affordable ways to entertain ourselves actively.
Internet and OTT platforms are full of passive entertainment options. But active entertainment is far more satisfying than that.
In passive entertainment, we lose time, energy, and resources, but in active entertainment, we invest them to better ourselves. With passive entertainment, all we can be is a consumer, but with active entertainment, we can be a producer or a creator as well. Entertainment is good, but gaining something out of it is even better.
People from different age groups face different issues regarding entertainment. Youth face a lot of stress and generally find an escape in passive entertainment. Rather than finding a convenient escape, try to better engage with the situation in our life. Learning new skills, developing a new hobby, workouts and so on can help us develop ourselves better as an individual and return to our challenges better equipped.
Cut screen time
I have seen parents giving phones to their babies as a pacifier. I do not know what a one-year-old makes out of a small screen, but experts do warn about the hazards of “screen time” for young ones. Child psychologists recommend that children be given exploratory types of toys so that they can learn better. But the stressful lifestyle of today encourages parents to provide something to quickly pacify the child.
Children should be rather encouraged to go for active entertainment, which stimulates their physical and mental development. Passive entertainment, though convenient, can prove harmful in the long run.
The elderly suffer from a lack of quality entertainment options. With age, they are often unable to participate in physically challenging activities. Moreover, the entertainment industry does not make content for them because it does not offer much profit. As a result, they are forced to lead a life of boredom.
Post-retirement life should be as much fun as during working life. That is why people should try to find ways of entertaining themselves, but a little help is expected from society as well. Having engaging conversations with loved ones is usually pleasing to the elderly, but still, they suffer neglect and silent treatment vastly.
Entertainment is not only about passing the time but also about exploring and enriching ourselves. The biggest disadvantage of passive entertainment is that it is far more addictive than the active one. Thus, it can potentially push one into a cycle of lack of productivity and creativity, boredom, and poor health. Passive entertainment might help us release “feel-good” hormones for some time, but that won’t last.
A good life has a fine balance of both work and leisure. But our leisure should not bind us; rather it should liberate us. Therefore, we should make serious efforts to break away from the shackles of passive entertainment, for our own physical and mental well-being.
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