People Can’t Always Be Trusted to Make the Right Leisure Choices

Many Leisure Activities Have Health Risks The Abuse, rather than Use of drugs in one’s leisure time often can have negative health affects Drug Overdose Making Bad Decisions

Many Leisure Activities Have Health Risks Doing activities that one is not physically capable of doing can also have negative outcomes Benching too much weight Trying to hike the Appalachian Trail when you’re out of shape

Some Leisure Activities Can Be Addicting and Lead to Financial Problems Inexperienced and experienced gamblers often blow more money in one night than they actually earn – Remember, the House always wins People who travel and spend money frivolously sometimes don’t have enough money to get back home

The truth is, people in general get hung up in their leisure and often times it takes more effort to go from leisure to work, than work to leisure.

Leisure choice needs to be controlled Consequence of Actions Addictive and leads to new habits Limits and Control

Resource Use – All inclusive Resorts- Jamaica – Ski Resorts- “Sustainable Slopes” Need of Rules and Officials

What Are Some of the Problems in Controlling People’s Leisure? Destroying individuals rights and freedoms to do as they wish. People have a right to do what they want with their free time. It is what they have been working hard for and earning money. Shouldn’t people be able to do what they want when they want it?

Does Putting Limits on Things Promote Underground Behavior? Drinking and Smoking. Because of age and other requirements placed on drinking and smoking, a subculture of underground elicit behavior has emerged. There is a market to people who are underage and a desire to have something, just because you can’t have it.

Smoking (no this is not the point of our presentation) Having Marijuana as an illegal substance, many people argue is what leads to the abuse of the drug. Some believe that legalizing marijuana would lower crime rates and create a new form of peaceful leisure.

People can be trusted to make the best leisure choices  People have morals and do not like to break the law  Regulations at recreational institutions help influence people to make the best choices

People can be trusted to make the best leisure choices  People do not want to get involved with the wrong social crowd  People are concerned about their future well-being

But Can People Be Trusted Not to Abuse These Substances? While we would like to be able to trust human judgment, we unfortunately cannot. It is general human nature to abuse what is given to them, whether it be natural resources (oil), money, or drugs. That is why sometimes the individual rights must be sacrificed for the benefit of the overall safety of the community.

Safety For the safety of ourselves, and our community, certain rules are put into place to protect us. At the beach, we have lifeguards to tell us where we can and cannot swim so that we will not be at risk of drowning.

Safety At our National Parks, to protect the wildlife and ourselves, there are many signs posted so that we can stay safe while participating in leisure

Safety There are many activities that are monitored for our safety. Rides at theme parks have height and size requirement so that you do not fall out of the ride. Hot tubs do not permit pregnant women to bathe to protect their babies.

Other Reasons for Leisure to Be Monitored Music, Movies, and Video Games all have warnings and ratings on them for the viewers sake. They do not want young children playing video games to develop an idea that violence is okay so they restrict the users to an age where people are considered Mature. Songs and Movies often have an explicit or R ratings because they don’t want the listeners and viewers to repeat the offensive language, or try to participate in things seen in the movies at too young of an age.

Rules in Sports Allow for Better Cooperation and More Fun If sports did not have any rules, there would be no fun in playing them. Imagine if you could just pick up the soccer ball and throw it in the net? Or if you could move the golf ball to wherever you wanted on the course? (oh tiger…) Or if you could just do anything you wanted…

In Conclusion… People cannot generally be trusted to make the right leisure decisions. This is why there are rules and regulations to promote our safety and cooperation. There are regulations to preserve our limited resources, and to make sure that we are in the right shape to participate in certain activities. There are rules put in place to protect us and ensure cooperation between us and our fellow recreators.

Sometimes People Allow Their Leisure to Leak into Their Work Time How many of you have ever said, “I’m just going to check facebook real quick” and ended up spending three hours chatting with random people and looking through pictures of people you don’t even know?

How many of you have turned on the t.v. to watch a show for a half hour and ended up finding Forest Gump while flipping through the channels and watching the movie in its entirety?

Or how many of you have laid down between classes to take a quick “cat nap” and ended up sleeping for three hours and sleeping through Rec Management? (like that would ever happen)

How many have you ever disregarded a sign that was put up to protect you? Ever ducked under a rope at a ski mountain to hit that sweet powder stash?