February 2021 Leisure Time - How do you spend yours?
Leisure Time-How do you spend yours?
Every February reminds me of the Ground Hog Day ritual and now, more than ever, with the Covid 19 pandemic, I am reminded of the Bill Murry film, “Ground Hog Day “ where a weatherman finds himself living the same day over and over again. So what’s my point? Time is a gift. How we use it or abuse it affects us in many ways. We all know how to waste time. Given 1440 minutes in a day and 525, 998 minutes in a year, how many of those go toward productive or personally satisfying endeavors vs. wasted minutes and wasted time?
We spend our most productive and healthy years (time) working so we can eventually retire (we hope). And when and if we reach that goal, we supposedly have more leisure time to enjoy our lives and our hobbies. Believe it or not, many folks who retire do not have a hobby. Work is all they have known and can relate to. Which brings me back to Ground Hog Day. Given the gift of leisure time, how do we use it? When I was in grammar school, I recall a clock in my grade school classroom with a phrase over it. It said: “The time will pass, will you”. That simple phrase has stuck with me throughout my life. To me it means don’t waste your time looking at the clock, use your time and be productive.
As a retired psychologist, I recall Erik Erikson, who developed a model of psychosocial development with eight stages, the last two are particularly relevant. Stage 7, Generativity vs. Stagnation lays out a choice for us. Choose generativity (make a contribution to society) and be productive in what you do or choose stagnation and live off of other’s contributions to society. Stage 8, which occurs during retirement age is Ego Integrity vs. Despair and basically states that what happened in Stage 7 determines whether your retirement years will be filled with satisfaction or regrets.
Combine this with our current pandemic, the time of year (less sunlight and shorter days) possibly leading some of us to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) and it is little wonder why we need to find purpose and goals to keep us in synch with ourselves.
The point I am trying to make is ham radio is a gift. Our hobby allows us to structure our leisure time, set goals (such as learning or increasing our CW skills, acquiring more contacts, countries, states, counties, etc.; or build a kit) and find ways to increase our generativity and thus our feelings of self-worth. When we participate in events like the Chicago Marathon or Evanston Century 100 as support teams, we are making contributions. Likewise, Field Day, Hams in the Park, Fox Hunts all give us something to look forward to and make contributions. For instance, our current effort to find mentors for newly minted hams and for hams needing technical help also contributes to our sense of generativity and belonging.
Instead of feeling like every day is like every other, we find ways to break out of patterns of sameness and contribute to one another in a supportive environment. While we have been denied some activities over this past year due to the pandemic, we have been creative and have engineered new ways of interacting such as the virtual Build Club, Virtual club meetings, virtual Saturday Morning Breakfast. Our Thursday Night Net meetings have increased in popularity and it is no surprise that our membership roles have increased as individuals discover our many activities as viewed from our website.
Here is one way you could make a contribution of lasting value to the club and the public at large. We are currently trying to put together a virtual program for the Northbrook Public Library on introduction to Ham Radio. Our own Derick Bonewitz, AB9PR and Don, KK9H are leading the effort, but they could use your help. We need club members to take short “selfies” (no longer than 5 minutes) of themselves engaged in ham operations such as CW, FT4/8, RTTY, Rag Chew SSB, HT using our repeaters, etc. to demonstrate ham radio in operation so the public can see what activities we engage in. So, I am challenging each of you to ham it up and we will take the best “selfies” and include them in our library presentation along with segments developed by ARRL. So, become a part of our club’s history and make a short video recording of you operating in your shack or the field and send them to Derick at derick.bonewitz@gmail.com before March 31st.
And speaking of using your time and breaking away from the potential boredom of the sameness of every day I hope everyone is looking forward to the virtual Hamcation, February 11-13, 2021 (more information at info@hamcation.com) and Ham Expo coming up March 13th and 14th, so you might want to register at https://www.qsotodayhamexpo.com
Let’s stay connected and look forward to longer and warmer days ahead. Until then.
73,
Burt KR9T