Embracing Leisure

As a daughter of immigrants, a Protestant, and a person with anxious tendencies, I tend to be resistant to the idea of leisure for leisure’s sake. Shouldn’t I be doing something to better the world, to get ahead of deadlines, or to prepare for the worst—rather than “just” having fun?

This wasn’t always as challenging for me, but parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated my anxiety—not about health risks, but about trying to preserve my three children’s sense of normalcy. Throughout the pandemic, I placed enormous pressure on myself to keep joy and delight in my kids’ lives. We went on bike rides, frolicked through meadows, flew kites, and invented games of four-person whiffle ball. I transformed our little home into a bowling alley, a bakery, or a painting studio, sometimes all in the same day. Cultivating these moments exhausted me as I also worked my front-line job at the hospital and juggled telemedicine at home. Fun became a chore, another thing I was responsible for checking off the to-do list.

In the face of these self-induced pressures, my own mental health deteriorated. Recognizing that I needed to take care of myself more, I leaned into one of my favorite hobbies, reading, which has always transported me into different lands and lives. Yet even reading slowly transformed into its own productivity monster over time. The book reviews that I was posting for kicks on Instagram connected me with a lovely community of fellow readers. But soon publishers started sending books to me to review, and while I still absolutely enjoy reading and writing reviews, it is now accompanied by a sense of obligation and duty. How did I get so good at killing off fun?

Distorted theology underlies at least part of my reluctance toward pure leisure. The phrase “Saving souls is the only good thing we won’t be able to do on the other side of heaven” taught me that I best be using every minute of my earthly life to win souls for Jesus. In the church spaces where I was raised, pleasure was viewed with suspicion if not outright contempt. Work and vocation were the topics of countless talks at college fellowship meetings, conferences, and retreats, whereas how we enjoy downtime is rarely given such prominence. (I’m not addressing Sabbath here, but rather something we might call more frivolous: fun).

Ultimately, though, my difficulty letting loose is core to my personality. When I learned my Enneagram type (the reformer 1), it came as no surprise that I strive to improve things and that I wish to be useful above all else. Taking time to have fun seems like a distraction from that goal.

Yet I also learned that my direction of growth and integration is toward the enthusiast 7. That inner voice that reprimands me every time I turn toward relaxation, joy, spontaneity, and leisure—the voice that I thought was my conscience pulling me back to serious, meaningful, important pursuits—can actually be unhealthy.

Recently, I’d been sensing that my eldest, who started middle school this year, was increasingly disconnected from the family. A few weeks back, he mentioned wanting to go mini-golfing, but now that it was late fall and dark at 4 PM, outdoor options weren’t available to us. So when our family of five had a rare free Sunday evening, I looked up a new indoor putt-putt course with zany obstacles, laser beams, and spinning tunnels. It looked ridiculous and silly and perfect for our kids. My inner voice started with its usual critiques: “But it’s expensive and indulgent, and isn’t the money better spent on people who truly need it? Shouldn’t you be more creative in finding no-cost family bonding activities?” But I also knew that our family board game nights often ended in a kid crying or storming off and that it could paradoxically be a lot of work (see: pandemic) to manufacture fun ourselves.

So I asked myself, “What would an Enneagram 7 do?” Of course, they would jump at this chance to enjoy a spontaneous, whimsical family activity!

We went to the putt-putt place, had loads of fun, laughed a lot, created great shared memories, and enjoyed our time together so much that I’m already scheming about our next family fun outing. (Yes, you can inject some fun into my life, but you can’t entirely take the planning out of it.)

That one night out was a step toward healing some of my kids’ sibling hurt and pain that has accumulated over the years (adoption trauma and attachment difficulties are part of our family’s history). It helped my eldest—our most independent and thus most inclined to be neglected in terms of hands-on parental attention—feel heard in a way that mattered to him. It gave us a chance to let loose together and enjoy one another. It reminded me that God is a God of delight. Knowing myself better—in this case, through the Enneagram—has helped me quiet the inner voice that incites guilt when I relax. Now, I just need to decide: escape room or ninja obstacle course?