Friday, November 14, 2008
What Do You Do With Your Time?
The big question... What do you do with your time? We ended class yesterday with the discussion of leisure time. Some how Americans feel the need to crunch their time and use every minute effectively. God for bid we relaxed for a few minutes or did nothing. The concept of productivity is highly Americanized in our culture. Granted not everyone uses their time like this, however this appears to be the general trend. Based on the class discussion, a majority seem to have a regimented schedule outside of the classroom. A few appear to have the time to spare for leisure. This does not suggest necessarily that people do not know how to have fun, but rather the fun must be scheduled in. Specifically Merel had mentioned that the general trend is the complete opposite in the Netherlands. There is not nearly the same amount of pressure and time constraint in Europe. One may wonder how our culture has gotten so money hungry and time driven. Doesn't everyone want to accomplish the American Dream? Some may regard everyone as having the innate right to be successful and happy in life. What can we draw from this?
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7 comments:
Since I just posted a long post about it on our groupblog, I am not going to repeat everything I just said, but I just wanted to raise some questions. What is exactly the American Dream? What do people do when they finally have money? Because it seems that they do not have time to spend it. Why do we all need to accomplish so much? Is it ever enough?
By
Merel van Helden
A good exercise is to have a night, or better yet, one full day...where you have your cell phone off.
Or, a day where you have no access to time. No clock looming over you.
It's interesting to see how one freaks out when their life, even for a day, is not structured or productive all the time.
i like the idea of having no access to time...i wonder how i would respond if i tried that out.
-adrienne
Good point Yanina. I think that would be an excellent exercise. Certainly not having a cell phone glued to your side would be extremely difficult for most of us. At least I know I can speak for myself.
I agree with BG. I would never survive a day without my cell phone. One of my friends in a class here has to turn her cell phone off for a week. I personally hated it because I could never get a hold of her. I think it would stress me out more than let me relax.
I definately can't wait for the American dream. 2.5 kids, house with the white picket fence, nice cars. That is what I picture the American dream as. I think we work so hard now so that eventually we can have the time and money to relax.
Becky
I feel like most college students have a surplus of free time. At least on this campus, the vast majority do not participate in too many extracirricular activities. I agree that always doing something the fastest way possible is very "American" but I think most college studnets overplay how busy the are to portray a "feel sorry for me im a college student" persona.
-Matt
I would agree with you during my first year here, but now that I have been here for some time and familiar with the student body I am much more aware of the extracurriculars students are involved in. I am finding more and more students here are involved in a lot outside of the class room.
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