The topic of wellness has only been referred to by this term for a few years, but of course that doesn't mean it, that concepts, aimed at human well-being, would have been unknown in previous centuries. The Idea, that it is an art, sometimes nothing to do, is relatively old. The English writer Laurence Stern, a well-known artist from 18. century, already said: "Nowhere do people strain themselves more than in the hunt for relaxation."
If you go inside and look at yourself, how you have spent the last days and weeks, so many people will probably come to the same conclusion, that this old statement is truer today than ever.
We have appointment calendars, with whom we organize our leisure activities, and hardly a game, Hardly any sport or other distraction can be organized, without any stress at all.
Certainly, the stress is actually due to the demands of everyday life - if we had nothing else to do, than to provide for our distraction, so our life would certainly be carefree and enjoyable, and probably stress-free as well. At least that's what we believe.
In fact, Stern makes the same point about the aristocratic class in old Europe, which still had its roots in medieval feudal society and which therefore sometimes had no financial fears and no excess work.
What did these privileged people do though? They didn't rest all day - although of course they took an amazing degree of self-care for the time - but looked for various occupations and tasks, which in the end meant stress again.
Please remember, the positive aspects of stress, and they may understand this behavior better - because stress makes us feel too, to be valuable and important, even if you can't say for sure, is to be assumed, that the same was true of our ancestors. who had nothing to do, whom nobody wanted to see – how could someone like that be important?
It was always just the outsiders of society, which differs in this way from all requirements (turned away the positive as well as the negative), and that's exactly how they were seen by other people, of course.
Even today, this is not necessarily wrong – who would have thought of it, cancel all appointments, to think only about yourself and to lie on the couch or in the hammock full of leisure?
The few hours, when you have time for it, may be spread over many weeks, and one would seldom get the idea, easy to take care of, that you have more of them - because the social obligations are already waiting, because you practice a sport or a hobby or for other reasons.
And that is not always based on conviction, that it is the more comfortable option, chasing from one date to another - it's also, in a way, a social imperative in our game for attention and prestige.
Who would, when he meets his colleagues again after the weekend, self-confidently answer the frequently asked question about the weekend, that he did "nothing".?
Even today – in the time of wellness and relaxation – one prefers to keep idleness to oneself, and if you take the time to relax, then you shoveled them free - because it just "had to" be.
Maybe it just needs to be more often? But we would hardly admit that, because we were afraid, being misjudged by our acquaintances and friends as "boring"..
canoeists, Strength athletes and kart drivers are very open about their passions, that they've been pursuing over the weekend—couch potatoes certainly don't.
In the past, though, idleness came alongside commitments, which you may have loaded up on in the hunt for relaxation, also a lot of positive sides, which even endured in terms of social prestige - doing nothing was also a sign of it to a certain extent, that you could afford it, Nothing to do. The feudal roots of the old society before the French Revolution certainly recognized an appreciation for privileged birth, which was usually a prerequisite for this, that you might even be able to afford it at a young age, Nothing to do. Popular and respected archetypes of the idler were the not only literary type of the "flaneur" or the "dandy"., who understood it down to the last detail, used to doing nothing.
It may not be by accident, that we unconsciously remember such old "virtues"., which have to be reassessed because of their social roots, which nevertheless have an important and, above all, positive effect on human well-being.