My Future Leisure and Sustainability of Northern California Ocean and Term Paper

My Future Leisure and Sustainability of Northern California Ocean and River - Term Paper Example Passive leisure does not involve the use of extreme energy while active leisure needs a person to utilize full mental and physical energy. Examples of passive leisure can be going to the cinema and watching television. Examples of active leisure can be swimming, fishing and dancing (Joffre, 1960). The North California Ocean and rivers provide a good environment for leisure activities such as swimming and fishing. The leisure activities are important for several reasons that will be discussed in the paper for people of north California. From my own experience, there is a surety of leisure engagement to reduce among the people of North California in the future. This is so because life is expensive. The cost of spending on very important things like food, clothes and leisure is very high. Most of the people concentrate on making money to meet there basic needs only. For students who are working and living alone, it is worse. There is no time for leisure because one requires having two jobs to meet there daily needs and wants. As an individual's rate in leisure engagement reduces, the more stressed they become. Leisure gives people a sense of freedom. Neulinger 1974 came up with two psychological functions of leisure. The main one was perceived freedom where he asserts that leisure depends on freedom from any internal or external constraints. The fact that an individual has the capability to choose what he or she is to do, the time and place gives them intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the second psycholog ical concept where there is no payment after one engages in the leisure activity. The moment one engages in an activity and at the end of the day they are being paid for it, then there is extrinsic motivation. At the same time it can lead to intrinsic motivation. The leisure activities are a great motivation for individuals because of self actualization that everyone needs to build there self esteem (Neulinger, 1974). In addition, Mihaly 1996 contributes to the benefits of engaging in leisure by using the theory of flow. The flow theory states that an individual has full involvement in and activity they engage in that is, there is full mental focus to the activity and the individuals feel energized by the focus. The flow contains a lot of variables: setting clear goals, high rates of focus and concentration, loosing self-consciousness, lose sense of time, feedback should be direct and immediate, level and challenge ability should be balanced, feeling of personal control over an activity, intrinsic reward of the activity and complete immersion in the activity. He went on to suggest the activities one can engage in to ensure that there is extrinsic benefit but other theorists have come up with those that lead to intrinsic benefits or motivation. The activities that lead to extrinsic motivation can be music, design, education and different sports. Intrinsic motivation involves the feeling of improvem ent, spirituality, self help and performance (Mihaly, 1996). The second reason for the diminishing rates of leisure engagement can be due to the pollution of the ocean and rivers especially the Sacramento River. Fishing and swimming are the major recreational activities that the people of North California engage in. this is due to the abundance of the rivers and the ocean. The ocean and the rivers are dirty. For fear of contracting infections due to the dirty water, people rarely