Entitlement to Play

This is in response to a question from my online class Self, Society, and Leisure.

Once upon a time in 2009, my boyfriend’s childhood friend came to stay with us for a few months. Luca, a longtime resident of Roma, Italy, for the past 31 years, was quite surprised to see how little Americans relax. In fact, he had commented on how much Americans work and how little they play. Could it be possible that we are workaholics that live in a culture addicted to stress, or are we just up to our heads in financial waters?

The importance of, although lack of, leisure time seems to have been swept under the rug, much like everything else that we leave to retrieve for another day. And the excuses are endless; either it's that we don’t have the time, the money, or rather the fact that we can’t just sit still for any given length of time.

The truth of the matter is that we are all traveling as fast as the speed of light. But who can blame us? The price of life is so expensive. Most of us, who live on our own, must have two jobs in order to support ourselves. And if we are going to school as well, time just doesn’t allow us to relax, or exercise for that matter. I don’t know many that are up to an evening run after a 15 hour day. Last semester I was lucky to get in five hours of sleep.

Not trying to sound pessimistic about making the time to relax, however, maybe the U.S. should follow Japan’s trend and implement “official governmental policies that encourage more leisure and recreation participation” (White Paper #4). In fact, most blue-collar workers I know cannot afford to take a vacation because they chose to have families, which they now need to support. And in an American economy in which inflation rises 2% a year, prices only rise while pay simply idles.

If our state governments like those several countries that “contribute to the costs associated with trips taken during vacations to encourage people to benefit from their ‘holidays’,” (White Paper #7) maybe folks would find a way to make that vacation happen! Taxes such as these, to put others at ease, may be an added possible solution to the current debate over universal health care…