Choose your pleasures wisely...

Hello!

Now I have had my share of high tech pleasures. To be sure, the occasional movie is fun and I recently bought season two of Quantum Leap which I have watched religiously pretty much two episodes a night. So I guess you might think it slightly hypocritical to wonder whether such pleasures should be the mainstay of our leisure time, but hear me out anyways. I am pretty sure I am right, even if I don't practice it to the degree that I would like.

I am convinced that the lower the technology involved in our leisure time, the less overwhelming and manipulating of the emotions, the more involved we are with someone else or God than the entertainment itself, the more life satisfaction we get out of it. When I get together with my friends, we talk. I have multiple rich relationships because I am willing to let them know me as I am and because I share myself, while getting to know them. There is something about simple pleasures that really remind a person about why it is good to be alive, why God is good- inspiring gratitude. I don't know about you, but I don't experience the same thing when I watch a movie; that is more of an escape than a simple pleasure. If life isn't satisfying to you and God seems distant and you need a change of pace, simplify your pleasures. Read a good book. Go for a walk- better yet, go for a walk in the woods. Pick pleasures that are closer to the pleasures originally invented by God for our satisfaction and see if you don't come away with a deeper sense of gratitude, a greater sense of feeling alive. And then, go and share what you experienced with someone else. Maybe if the world got what it needed from its leisure time, people would come to work more satisfied and content and less striving to get their next fix. Oh, you may experience some withdrawal symtoms- it may be hard walking away from your television fix, but just maybe you'll come away more joyous than you ever did coming out of that theater. If this works for you, maybe post a comment for others to read and let them know that simplicity, even in the smallest way, has its benefits.

Your companion in Christ,
Sean