Essays How Do You Spend Your Free Time, Craze For Foreign Goods, Importance of Health & Hiking
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How Do You Spend Your Free Time
If one works very hard and continuously, one naturally feels tired. Our minds begin to wonder, and we feel unable to fix our attention on work. Psychologists say that fatigue is caused by some of the brain matter being wasted while at hard work and that in order to allow the matter to be replaced, rest is necessary.
It is only after the necessary rest that we feel fresh as before. Thus leisure is quite essential for our system after hard work. This does not mean that we should absolutely cease to do any work because work is as necessary as rest.
Again, if we have a hobby like stamp-collecting, we may after a hard day’s work, collect stamps, affix them neatly in sheets with decorated borders. This is not only a pleasing occupation but also useful. We may also attend to our garden during your leisure hours.
We may trim a plant or prune a creeper or dig the ground. We may watch the glory of the buds blooming into a flower. Watering flower plants is not only a pleasant diversion but also a very useful form of physical exercise. We can also watch the birds around.
Some may try their hand at drawing or painting. Painting flowers or creepers or birds in their natural setting may give us great pleasure indeed. Those who have leisure may collect beautiful pictures and make them into neat albums.
If we are in the countryside, we may take a walk into the open and mingle freely with farmers and other rural folks. We may study their outlook and ideas, their needs and aspirations.
We may probably tell them a thing or two from our knowledge and make them aware of world developments. We may try to teach them hygiene and the method to use first-aid. Or we can also collect the tales most popular among them and specialize in folklore.
It is a fascinating study, which will reflect the various phases of the life of those spending most of their time in their native surroundings. The most useful way of spending one’s leisure is to do some kind of social service especially to the backward sections of society.
We may informally hold classes for illiterate adults narrate interesting stories, teach them to read and write, tell them how to safeguard themselves against infectious diseases, teach them the benefit of thrift by encouraging them to deposit their meagre savings in a savings bank or invest them in national savings certificates, and do a hundred other similar things.
Besides, we may teach them the rudiments of civics, educate them as to their rights as voters and as to their duties in safeguarding it. We may exhort them to give their wholehearted cooperation in the community project and other development schemes.
Craze For Foreign Goods
We Pakistanis are madly after everything foreign-dress, manners, food, education and what not. Pakistani music is considered to be inferior to ‘disco’ and ‘jazz’. The feminine shyness has been replaced by the blunt talks and staring looks of the ladies.
Speaking a foreign language has become a fashion. The young like to work as laborer in America instead of taking up a good job within their own country. To feed guests, we go to ‘mod’ restaurants where young boys and girls in jeans sway and scream around a “mike” while the band blues “rock music”.
The restaurants must have a bewitching singer who may wear a skin-tight, strapless flashy gown or a provocative waistcoat or baggy harem trousers looking like a Persian prince or a "mod’ American.
Some celebrate the Chinese new year in Chinese style in a restaurant that has for its name the title of a song from an old Hollywood movie. The menu includes Chinese, Japanese, Iranian and Arabian delicacies.
People want hotels to organize Mexican, Swiss and French nights. The decorations, the music and even the chefs are imported. Craze for the foreign things is not in the larger interests of the country.
We become the slaves of foreign manners and foreign habits; we cannot be molded according to the foreign culture. A craze for foreign goods will discourage our industrialists.
Importance of Health
It is very important to be cautious about health. I take great care to see that I remain healthy. For that I read books on health care and never miss a television programme where health care is spoken of by doctors.
Health can be maintained by eating good nutritious food. This includes eggs, milk, pulses, fruits, etc. As I am a vegetarian I try to eat a lot of butter, cheese and drink a lot of milk. I supplement my diet with vitamins and avoid medication.
I try to avoid eating at corners of the streets were street hawkers sell unhygienic and often stale food. I like to eat food cooked at home. Fresh fruit juices and salads keep me healthy too.
I avoid cold drinks spicy and fried foods. These cause acidity and lead to the formation of gas. I like to eat bland food that never interferes with the system. Maintaining happiness is equally good.
I keep my temper low and try to stay as happy as possible so that my health does not get affected. I have made these habits a part of my life and I find myself feeling very happy and contented with myself most of the time as I have a peaceful mind housed in a healthy body.
Hiking
Hiking is a great source of pleasure for us besides being beneficial for health. Once we leave the crowded streets of a city and go out for a walking tour away from the mad world, we really feel free.
The open air has a bracing effect on the mind. The congestion of the city, the uproar and tumult, the intolerable noise of traffic, the depressing daily routine all are forgotten and the mind is at liberty. We then feel like running, leaping, singing and laughing.
The sounds of nature like the murmur of a brook or the song of a bird, acquire a new meaning and significance for us. Our power of observation is sharpened, nothing escapes our eyes. A snake casting its slough, a mouse peeping out of its hole, a squirrel leaping about on the branches of a tree, a bird flying past us, all these arouse our interest.
We have no worries, no fear of the examination and no anxiety about the home task. We have got leisure to stand, to walk and talk. It is all the more a pleasure to do hiking in a mountainous region and thrilling than in the plains.
The excitement of climbing up to the top of a hill, the adventure of climbing down a slope, a grandeur of sunset behind a mountain, above us these impart a rare charm and interest to our journey. We walk among a zig-zag motor road or cut across a mountain path in search of adventure.
We may have bright sunny weather or be caught by a sharp shower of rain. We may look below us into the yawning chasm or up at the peak of mountain. The feeling of unlimited freedom makes our hearts leap with joy. Hiking is one of the healthiest sports.
It ensures complete escape from the urgent and busy activities of life and therefore gives to brain the rest it needs. Because of this rest, the brain regains its lost energy and is enabled to do twice as much work as before. Not only the brain, but the body is also greatly benefited by a long walk.
All our limbs get exercise, as we walk along, our digestion comes to order and our appetite is whetted. By the time we come to the end of our journey, we are as hungry as a hawk and how we relish the meal that we get at a dark bungalow or the food that we have brought with us.
And when we have pitched a tent for the night, what a sound slumber we enjoy till we are awakened at dawn by the sounds created by nature’s creatures. Add to all these pleasures of hiking, the opportunity of intimate conversation with the strangers we meet on the way or at our halting place.
When we are engaged in talk with a stranger, we forget our own identity, we forget ourselves and our professions. We meet a lot of people in the course of a long hike. We feel interested in chatting with them just as they welcome exchanging ideas with us.
