I find it incredibly fulfilling and peaceful to take a walk around my neighborhood with my dog.  Breathing in the fresh of the air is its own type of meditation; the mindfulness as nature surrounds you is so refreshing. When you can totally be in the moment and enjoying the beautiful flowers

surrounding you while you listen to the singing of the birds and the hum of the cicadas (or crickets).  Even in my backyard, while I water the plants, I see a chipmunk scurrying across the patio, and the same robin hanging out on my fence. This robin!  Makes me so angry!  Each year, my heart breaks when the same robin (creatures of habit) comes to build her nest on the bottom part of my deck.  Two sets of baby robins grew up and flew away sucessfully, but then the third batch of robins were eaten by a big lot of ugly crows a few years ago.  I had to put a coffee can in the space where the nest always appeared, so they moved on to create another nest on the next post of my deck. When that batch disappeared because of those ugly crows, a nut can had to go over that potential egg spot.  This breaks my heart.  Again, the coffee can fell during a storm and I let the new nest be built.  I witnessed the miracle of the baby birds emerging from their shells, and saw the black crows gathering in the courtyard outside my house celebrating their new feast of baby birds.

I was #heartbroken
when I found out
about the baby birds.

 Even though this is so depressing, I realize that this is the circle of life.  Survival of the fittest, or whatever.  Even though I may not agree with all of the ways of the world, I still have a desire to help all the people and animals of the world.  To help anyone or -thing to survive, and live a life of leisure to the fullest.  

Concepts such as perceived freedom, intrinsic motivation, perceived competence, and positive affect are critical to determining whether an experience is leisure or not leisure. … The second requirement of leisure as state of mind, intrinsic motivation, means that the person is moved from within to participate.

I believe that all populations have the right to a life of leisure, whether the people are young, or old, able bodied or surviving with challenges.  Everyone deserves to have a happy leisure life, no matter how that leisure life presents itself.  One could be an older person who merely appreciates nature, or a young child who has activities and games to keep constantly moving.  Even young children appreciate nature and the change of the seasons, noted from the boys that I babysit.

Even in my babysitting job, I believe provides a few hours of leisure, personally for me, and for the boys.  I enjoy hanging out with them, given that I don’t have any children of my own.  I don’t even have to stay around them all day, I get to hang out and play with them for a few hours, and then I get to give them back to the parents and enjoy a “kid free” evening with my husband.   Our one dependent and third person in our family is our dog Chazz.

Chazz returns us to the state of calmness and  peace.  An appreciation of nature and allows us to pause and reflect upon the current state of the world around us.  I enjoy our walks with Chazz and am very THANKFUL for them each and every day.