S2. What Readers Say They Would Do if They Had More Free Time

Here are results of the little survey I posted a week ago.

Last week, in Letter S1, I invited readers to comment on what they would do or how their life would change if they had more time every day to do whatever they would like to do.  Ninety-seven readers responded. To analyze the responses, I first printed them out, then circled key words indicating what each respondent said they would do. Then I clustered key words that represented similar activities to create categories, and then I counted how many respondents had cited something in each category. Here are the results, showing for each category the number who mentioned an activity in that category. I have listed them in order from the most frequently to least frequently mentioned, but included only those for which there were at least 4 mentions.

Read (many emphasized reading of books and reading deeply) –46.

Write (eleven of these said they would write one or more books) –41.

Walk (many used the word hike or emphasized walking in nature) –41.

Personal connections (more close time with friends and/or family) –39.

Create art/craft (Painting was most frequently mentioned) –33.

Volunteer (for a cause, community project, or creating a helping organization) –23.

Gardening (frequently specified as vegetable gardening) –22.

Outdoor recreation or sports (bicycling, kayaking, swimming, tennis …) –22.

Create music (most often learning or playing an instrument, but also group singing) –21.

Contemplate (includes reflecting, meditating, being aware, praying) –19.

Culinary activities (baking, experimenting with new recipes, etc) –14.

Yoga, martial arts, dance (grouped because of focus on body fluidity) –12.

Learn a language (some want to learn several languages) –11.

Travel (to see more of the world) –9.

Exercise (for physical fitness, no sport mentioned) –6.

Indoor games (cards, video games…) –5.

Home maintenance (repairs, removing clutter…) –4.

Of course, the people who responded to this survey do not represent a cross-section of citizens. They are people who read a substack called Play Makes Us Human and who had enough free time and motivation to respond to a survey about what they would do with more free time. A rather large percentage are authors of other substacks, and some have authored books. A rather large percentage mentioned that they are homeschooling or unschooling their children. Consistent with the homeschooling/unschooling decision many are already prioritizing family and home over out-of-home employment. Many mentioned that they are already engaged in the activities they listed but would engage in them more if they had more time.

The group who responded to this survey definitely don’t fit the profile described in a recent Washington Post article entitled Fun Is Dead, which contends that fun is dead not just because people are overworked but because they regularly turn what should be fun into work. They create elaborate vacations, parties, weddings, and the like but put so much effort, frenzy, and expense into them that they aren’t fun. They are exhausted before the event begins and then the event turns out to be a let-down; the high expectations cannot be met. They also turn what should be fun into performance. The photos and films, the fodder for social media, the show of having fun interfere with really having fun.

Real fun comes in the activities that are or can be part of daily life, as shown by the list above. The respondents to this survey apparently understand well that life is made more fun by altering daily activities to incorporate more of what they enjoy, not by adding grand events separate from daily life.

Many of the people who responded to the survey wrote quite eloquently about how they had already arranged their lives to maximize time and relationships and reduce concern about material wealth. You might enjoy going back to Letter S1 and reading some of the longer comments

Reading those comments tempts me to describe the way I altered my own life, 21 years ago, so that every day I can wake up saying, “Everything I do today I will do because I want to do it—it’s all play.” (Well, almost everything.)  Maybe I’ll elaborate on that in a future letter. [But here I am in my kayak.]

I invite you to comment here with your own further thoughts, especially about how to make everyday life more fun.

Happy New Year

Peter

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