What is life without leisure time! We all need to unwind somehow after a long day’s work even though we all have our own ways of doing so. My way of restoring myself when I get home at the end of the day is mostly curling up on my couch with a cup of cappuccino and a book. It’s actually a recent habit as in the previous few years I had to live away from home and the city in general because of college and then work. So when I moved back home I got in to the habit of drinking cappuccino every day. Last week however, I had one of the busy days at work so I stayed at my workplace the whole day and when I finally got off, I went to meet some friends in a café, I ordered cappuccino but they told me they didn’t have it yet due to some reasons and gave us choices of other drinks and my friends started ordering but I said we have to move to another café where I can get a cappuccino, they all started complaining saying what matters is that we are all together not the drinks and they like the café just fine and that’s when one of them told me; “you know what, I think you are getting addicted to it”. I strongly denied it then saying I couldn’t be because it hasn’t been that long since I started to have it regularly; but when I got home, what she said suddenly hit me, I started thinking, maybe she was right; so is that’s how addiction starts?
The concept of addiction is generally known but it’s kind of hard to accept the fact when it comes to yourself. You think it’s just occasional habit, that you have enough self-control so you are able to stop it anytime you want and addiction is beneath you, but in reality we all have our weak sides and we can sink in to it if we don’t realize it at the right time.
Of course it’s worse in case of very harmful substances like cigarettes, alcohol, gambling and such when most people start it for the sake of socialization with their peers, trying it now and then thinking they are just doing it for the sake of fun and relaxation and before they know it, leading to addiction; but there are also activities that seems harmless but subtly leads to addictions.
Wherever I go these days I see youths immersed in their phones whenever they can, the social interactions and friendships that can be formed in different kinds of occasions seems to be long lost as the youth today don’t seem to bother to even stop for a little while to observe their surroundings. I went to visit one family the other day and I was amazed; the house seemed more like a library with every member of the family using their own different kinds of electronic devices and earphones and didn’t seem to have the time to chat and laugh with each other, so there goes family bonding too! If this is not called addiction, I don’t know what it is!
I know it seems easier to use your phone, tablet, TV…for entertainment when you have had a tiring day but it instead of getting too used to your habits it wouldn’t hurt to go out to see and try new experiences sometimes, who knows maybe you would find additional hobbies to enrich your life.
Getting too used to or attached to habits or even people can’t be too good. There are people that always want to be around others, they like hang out with friends every single day, and think they are not able to have fun and enjoy life by themselves and when there comes a situation let’s say they have to move to a new place they have a hard time enduring it.
life is not always constant there may come circumstances when you are not able to have what you always had. So in order to have that flexibility and strength to handle different situations let’s take a moment ask ourselves what am I doing, “is this addiction or relaxation?”
BY SARON TESFAY