Dr. Jean Mundy: 850-644-3061; e-mail: bmundy@admin.fsu.edu

A Wall Street executive with a passion for wine quits her seven-figure-a-year job to become a sommelier.

A long-time professional journalist and physical fitness buff decides to switch careers and open a personal training business.

When negotiating contracts, unions and individuals alike forego increased salaries for more vacation time, mental-health days, and other benefits.

Part of a growing trend? Apparently. More and more Americans are opting to improve their quality of life at the expense of material wealth. Yet, the fact is most of us are overwhelmed by work and family--and at the expense of leisure time. Some of us, frankly, are afraid to make lifestyle changes that would give us more leisure time--scared to death, apparently, of what to do with it. Others of us would jump at the chance if we just knew how. Americans, immersed in the hectic pace and changing priorities that marks the close of the 20th Century, find it hard to manage time, much less set aside some of that precious commodity for themselves.

Studies show that the majority of

A Nation of Leisure Illiterates

Juggling our lives to include play as well as work has become a major social problem, one that an established FSU academic program may be particularly qualified to address. On the cusp of its 50th anniversary, FSU’s program in Recreation and Leisure Services Administration finds itself ranked one of the top leisure studies programs in the country. Since the 1970s, the program’s success has been measured by its ability keep pace with radical shifts in American society. These shifts--the working couple; the single-parent family; the explosion in entertainment choices, to name a few--have profoundly changed the concept of leisure time, and thus the role of research in addressing an increasingly serious social phenomenon.

Prof. Jean Mundy (Ph.D. Columbia), coordinator of FSU’s Recreation and Leisure Services Administration program, has seen and studied this transition for more than two decades. A nationally-respected leader in the leisure studies field, she is a founding member of the Academy of Leisure Services, the foremost academic organization in the discipline, and former president of the Society of Park and Recreation Educators, Mundy has authored a book about leisure education scheduled for publication later this year.

Finding and making the most of leisure time is a difficulty that we’re ill-prepared to face, says Mundy. First off, the term “leisure” itself is confusing to most, she declares. Bombarded with an ever-increasing array of recreational choices, American society generally doesn’t have meaningful free-time experiences and has leisure patterns that are predominantly home-based, passive, and restricted to a few easily-accessible experiences, Mundy says. The problem has become so pervasive that in recent years FSU’s program broadened its focus to help conquer what amounts to “leisure illiteracy.”

Complicated Times a Factor

Things weren’t always this bad, of course. In simpler times, people largely agreed on what was “fun” or just old-fashioned “R ‘n’ R,” and generally were good at it. Around the turn of this century, urban dwellers in the U.S., however, felt the need for more structured pasttime activities, and thus the modern recreation movement in the United States was born. The first community centers grew out of settlement houses in Boston and New York, offering not only organized recreation but social services as well.

Beginning in the 1940s, formal education recognized that providing activities for youth and older people required specialized training. Leisure studies, actually an offshoot of physical education, now encompasses activities ranging from art to volunteerism.

In its formative years, Mundy said FSU’s program focused on training undergraduates to administrate programs for local governments, senior citizen centers, public parks, corporations, and other institutions. For a long time, the leisure services profession assumed that the family unit and educational system were the primary developers of leisure attitudes and behaviors. With this underlying assumption, the role of the profession nationwide was merely to support institutional programs by providing better-designed programs, services, facilities, and leadership.

“That assumption was found to be incorrect in the context of today’s society,” says Mundy. “Schools have been pressured into a ‘back to the basics’ movement because children are showing they cannot read, write a complete sentence or do fundamentals of math.

“As for the family unit, the number of dual-parent workers, single-parent families and the economics of after-school care, the development of leisure attitudes and skills may be severely curtailed. So now, the recreation, leisure, and park movement must assume the leadership responsibility for teaching leisure skills. The scope of our program now includes helping students understand leisure aspects of people’s lives and society in addition to teaching how to deliver and administer the leisure services.”

Assoc. Prof. Julie Dunn (Ph.D. Illinois), in the FSU program since 1991, concurs.

“We’ve seen a lot more collaborative research into leisure behavior,” she says. “Over the past 20 to 25 years, the subject of leisure has been examined by sociologists, psychologists, and anthropologists as well as those in the leisure studies field. Consequently, we’re more informed about people’s attitudes, behaviors, and how they use or don’t use their free time.”

Although different shades emerge on the exact meaning of leisure, the views of leisure professionals are less restrictive than those held by most lay people. Mundy calls leisure “a state characterized by a sense of freedom and internal motivation in self-selected experiences.” Dunn sees leisure as more than a vacation or joining a recreational softball league; it can include “going to lunch with a friend or taking a few minutes from work to telephone a child at home. It’s the non-traditional element that’s important.”

Defining What Matters Most

The Leisure Education Advancement Project of the National Recreation and Park Association defines leisure education as “a process whereby people recognize leisure as an avenue for personal satisfaction and enrichment, become familiar with an array of leisure opportunities, understand the impact leisure has on society, and make decisions regarding their own leisure behavior.” On its face, it sounds simple, but putting theory into practice can get complicated.

Both Mundy and Dunn say that leisure time and time spent at work are not necessarily mutually exclusive--a statement that would surprise many of us and disturb a lot of management types. The possibility that one can experience leisure in the workplace is not easily accepted in a society where being productive has carried cachet since the birth of the Republic. The 60-hour work week is considered a badge of honor and foregoing an earned vacation is considered more normal than heroic for climbers of the corporate or bureaucratic ladder. Viewed primarily as a reward for work, leisure has never been given equal status.

Much of our attitudes about leisure, Mundy says, coincide with a prevailing societal view that working overtime and being productive are overriding factors in how we’re judged by our peers. Participating in what many perceive to be frivolous activities or having “too much” leisure time is frowned upon. But, there are individuals--such as the aforementioned ex-Wall Street executive and journalist--who gave up what many of us would consider glamor jobs and managed to parlay an avocation into a paying proposition. People like them have no problem pursuing leisure and finding balance between work and play in their lives.

These lucky few, Mundy explains, have an unusual sense of freedom who put a lot of stock in making personal choices on what really matters in their lives. She terms these type of people as possessing an “internal locus of control.” Other people, meaning most of us, possess an “external locus,” meaning that we believe our personal decisions don’t count for much. We subordinate our views to what others say and do.

It’s easy to see, of course, that people who are impervious to outside pressure have tremendous advantages over others. They’re less vulnerable to societal pressures and judgments from friends, relatives, and co-workers. Since the traditional view is that people shouldn’t enjoy their work “too much,” those with an internal locus of control invite negative perceptions about their work ethic. They are, however, no less productive than anyone else; they’re just not willing to sacrifice personal well-being for appearance’s sake, says Mundy.

When it comes to leisure, “externals” make such comments as “I don’t have time for leisure” or, as a means of justifying some time off, declare “I have to.” “Internals,” on the other hand, say “I will have to make time for leisure” and “I choose to.” Mundy is quick to note that “externals,” who feel they are controlled by what happens to them, can also achieve a sense of freedom and personal power. Studies have shown that although the origins of locus of control can be traced to early family environment, ingrained “externals” can gradually change and take responsibility for their lives.

Despite academia’s view that leisure is enriching and lends balance to our lives, the negative connotation of leisure by lay people is a primary obstacle in educating the public to its value. Mundy emphasizes leisure studies is not a program to undermine the work ethic or force a set of values on an individual. The field, she says, works best when it approaches the education process from the standpoint of helping individuals think through, evaluate, and make highly personal leisure choices and decisions.

“Unfortunately, society portrays leisure as frivolous, and a lot of people are hooked into that philosophy, ” she said. “They don’t attach the feeling of freedom to making personal choices. Although people value freedom highly conceptually, they don’t connect that concept to leisure.”

Another contributing cause to the leisure gap is the feeling of guilt, Mundy goes on, adding this occurs when people do something nice for themselves. This is particularly true for women, she adds, although acceptance of women in all sectors of society is changing that. Modern society expects “Supermom,” a mother, spouse, and full-time worker who feels guilty about stopping and re-evaluating her life.

Amassing Toys No Answer

Still another leisure roadblock is the “have it all, have it now” lifestyle philosophy projected in the mainstream media. This attitude comes at the expense of health, family time, and a person’s sense of well-being, Mundy observes, adding that “the value system of material wealth says who I am, how much I earn, what part of town I live in.”

Dunn notes that the societal view of “what everyone should have” puts enormous stress on people to the point that they are willing to sacrifice all of their time to achieve a goal that they had no part in formulating. Interestingly, leisure study experts see no correlation between material resources and leisure-time outcomes.

“Material resources only affects the type of experience, not the quality of experience,” Dunn says. “A teenager playing softball in his backyard is probably having a more enjoyable experience than a kid at a baseball camp who is there to improve his chances of obtaining a college scholarship.

“Where resources come into play is the safety factor. People residing in a high-crime neighborhood have their leisure opportunities restricted because of the risk in venturing outside.”

According to Dunn, the “buy this, work this hard” mentality needs to be tempered by educating people to take control of their free time and use it in a positive, safe way. This applies to people at every life stage, she says, from teenagers to couples needing time to escape to senior citizens in retirement. She observes that the problem of free time is more acute in Florida because of its vast tourism industry and sizable population of retirees.

Decisions, Decisions...

Mundy uses Lee Iacocca as a classic example of a person incapable of creating a leisure lifestyle. The former Chrysler Corporation chairman, revered for his business acumen and uncompromising work ethic, recently announced that he found retirement unfulfilling and would re-enter the business arena.

“Unfortunately, this highly-respected businessman has an unsophisticated view of life and the possibilities of life,” Mundy says. “Whatever he did following his retirement did not have a lot of meaning so he got bored and restless.”

Both Mundy and Dunn note that work, for most people, is not physically exhausting. It is the emotional and mental pressures, they say, that cause them to come home and declare they are “too tired” to enjoy a leisure activity or even interact with loved ones. They are convinced that this deterioration in quality of life is the result of overemphasizing the amassing of material goods.

Mundy calls today’s America a “Baskin-Robbins society”--confusing for many because all the choices available can be frustrating and overwhelming. It can get to the point where some individuals will just throw up their hands, turn to another and say, “OK,you decide.” Recreation and leisure services professionals, however, have made it their mission to help these people clarify their values so that they can make decisions that will improve their quality of life.