SERIOUS LEISURE PERSPECTIVE

Can leisure be related to being serious? Leisure is the time for relaxation, to spend with
friends, or to escape from obligations. However, being serious is distance us from ‘having a
good time’. It´s important to understand what leisure is and its perspectives to identify the
different types of leisure and how to apply them to your quality of life. From ancient cultures,
leisure has been seen as any type of activity that is separated from physical work and which
provides the individual, time to spend on their freedom. Nowadays, we can experience leisure
by the time which is left after doing all our obligations.

There are two main groups for defining leisure which is: objective (which can be defined as
the time you spend doing something or as activity) and subjective (is seen as a state of mind,
where you are satisfied doing that experience). To have a satisfying leisure experience is
constructed by 4 factors: Perceived freedom, Perceived competence, intrinsic motivation, and
positive affect. The first factor is based on where people have a choice on what experience
they choose, and which is free from responsibilities. The perceived competence is based on
having skills, abilities, and necessary control to successfully experience being satisfied over a
leisure activity. Intrinsic motivation occurs when an individual can choose their leisure activity
and as a result, it gave his satisfaction. Lastly, the positive effect is when you can give a benefit
of a leisure experience activity and gives you comfort (Hoogenboom, Martin Groters & Thiska,
2011).

When we talk about serious leisure, we analyze the three perspectives: serious leisure,
casual leisure, and project-based leisure. Serious leisure has a systematic pursuit, with intrinsic
motivation, and that activity helps to develop into a new career path. Casual leisure is an
immediately rewarding and short-lived pleasurable core activity that requires non or little
training. Project-based leisure is a short-term, a reasonable complicated, and occasional
activity which is free time obligation. To give a more detailed explanation, I will give examples
of each leisure form.

Serious leisure is related to leisure activity gives you a benefit. Usually, comes from these
three forms: amateur, hobbyist, and career volunteering in which everyone has a different way
to approach them. Amateur comes from any type of good activity in which the aim is to attract
the audience, for example, an athlete. It is composed of four groups: art, science, sports, and
entertainment. Hobbyists pursue the activity for their own needs rather than attracting an
audience. This type of activity can be divided into five subgroups, which are collecting, making,
activity participation, sports, and liberal arts. Career Volunteering is an activity done from self-
interest or altruism (the need to help another person to do something good). Their
subcategories: popular, idea-based, material, flora, fauna and environmental. (Veal, Jonh T.
Haworth & A.G, 2004).

Stebbins found out that inside serious leisure you can find 6 distinguishing qualities or
rewards: To be able to overcome a difficult situation and be successful, to increase
accomplishments for a certain cause, make a real effort for a serious task by giving all your
knowledge and skills, to obtain benefits from this leisure, being able to participate, able to
identify the cause of the activity. These qualities give personal (special to de participant, skills
and knowledge) and social (similar interests, group accomplishment, and unity) rewards. But it
also gives you negative outcomes like working with difficult people, stress, or being exhausted.
(Stebbins, Robert A., 2018). 
 Casual leisure is an immediate, intrinsic rewarding activity where no skills are needed.
The benefits of these types of experiences are longer-lasting where you feel pleasure, self-
gratification the maintenance of your own identity. It is also described: Finding something
unexpected that adds value, when an individual learns funnily, feeling of renewal of the self,
taking time to stay in contact with your inner self, provide new energy (Stebbins, Robert A.,
2018).

Depending on the motivation and the commitment to the activity of the person
involved leisure generates greater happiness and quality of life by self-expression, integration,
health, meeting new people. The concept of flow. Create goals for satisfaction and do not
stress ourselves. Also, Stebbins divided this category into 8 different groups: Play (like
dabbling), relaxation (napping), passive entertainment (books), active entertainment (parties),
sociable conversation (gossiping), sensory stimulation (eating), casual volunteering (help a
friend) and pleasurable activity (dancing). (Hoogenboom, Martin Groters & Thiska, 2011).

Project-based leisure is a short-term, reasonably complicated, one-shot, occasional, or

infrequent activity that has a creative undertaking carried out in free time, with no obligations.
In these types of activities, the participant has involved an organized environment
(organizational milieu) in which is asked for the exertion and sometimes to gain experience in
the field. One example is birthday parties. This group can be also divided into a one-shot
project which is subdivided into five groups: making, liberal arts, activity participation,
volunteering, and art project. The other group is occasional projects, which means that the
activity is something done regularly. (Stebbins, Robert A., 2018).

In conclusion, leisure can be seen as serious because it depends on the type of activity
you do. It can have an objective perspective whether you spend time with that activity or a
subjective perspective in you end up satisfied after making an activity. You can enjoy your
leisure activity at the moment of doing it but afterward, you will realize if it was casual leisure
and you received an immediately intrinsically reward or a more project-based activity is an
activity you usually do but you learn new things or a serious leisure activity because you end
up being a musician.