Leisure and Contentment

This time of year is ripe with busyness. You might ask yourself, “How can I slow down when I have to go to A, B, and C or get X, Y, and Z?” In a bit of a different reflection for December than what you may typically be bombarded with in the consumeristic marketplace, consider leisure and contentment, and what they have to do with each other. Leisure, simply defined, is what you do in your free time. Contentment is a state of happiness and satisfaction. Understanding the combination of the two – especially with regards to achieving financial goals such as FIRE (financial independence, retire early) – helps us enjoy the time hard-earned by attaining financial freedom. Enjoy these three resources:

• Read: To better understand leisure, I recommend Joseph Pieper’s book on the subject, Leisure: The Basis of Culture, or read through this well-thought-out summary. It is important what we do in leisure – leisure is not lounging on the couch all day Sunday watching NFL or binging a Netflix series (“relaxing” as those might be!). Cal discusses this in the podcast below, too: leisure should involve meaningful activity if it is to have merit.
• Listen: Brandon of Mad Fientist hosted a great conversation with Cal Newport, author of such books as Deep Work, So Good They Can’t Ignore You, and most recently, Digital Minimalism. 
• Watch: Cal Newport, in a TedTalk entitled “Why you should quit social media“, stresses the need for digital minimalism to allow oneself to be content and to be able to focus without mindless distraction. 

You may wonder, what do we do with our leisure time? Of late, we’ve been spending time playing this game and working on this puzzle.

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You can click on the links below to access this month’s resources. Thanks for reading, listening, and watching!