WHAT ABOUT FREE TIME FOR YOUNG PEOPLE IN CROATIA?

 The more we grow up, the more we realize the importance of the concept of time. Sometimes we feel that the time hangs heavy on someone’s hand. And sometimes we do not understand how time flies. However, we all do like the chill moments when we close our eyes after an exhausting day in a rush. We, sometimes, might even forget to spare some time for ourselves within the fatigue of the day, backlogs, deadlines. In fact, we can beneficially do many things in 24 hours when we plan it well, 

At this point, we thought that it might be perspective-changing to confer with young people. Even if time is equal for all of us, the concept of time is individual. Comparing ourselves to others might be uncomfortable for us. When looking from this point, within the interviews, there are students, workers, both workers and students. The time is equal for those however, while 24 hours would be enough for some, It is not enough for others. Herein, maybe, we should observe how useful and wisely we can benefit from the time.

In other words, how much time can we separate for ourselves while we are lost in time and find ourselves in the rush of life? Yes, maybe we would feel better when we separate time to get away from our continuously thinking mind. Let’s imagine a moment how we can benefit from our free time even when it makes us smile when we think about it. The answer of “separating time” was more or less the same. The young people are very aware of this subject and pay attention to separate time. While some of them can have the whole weekend for themselves, the others have time in the first opportunity. Still, we can see that the seven days are equal for each of us. However, we are different in individual aspects.

Not only separating time, but also we dissent when it comes to free-time activities. While some of us prefer resting and chilling, others prefer singing in their free time. However, there is one mid-point, which is to watch films or TV series. I guess this is within our favorite activities. The other mentioned activity is to drink coffee with friends. In this point, we can see that Croatian youth love to talk, share, socialize and separate time for their family and friends. In addition to that, they also pay attention to working out frequently. We all know the countless benefits of working out. Croatian youth is also very well aware of this. 

And sometimes, we end the day without doing anything. When we look back, we feel sorry for spending a day in vain.  In fact, after the conversations we held, we saw that young people think au contraire. To put it all in simple terms, sometimes we can give an off day to ourselves as a reward. The only thing that our brain and body need might be just resting and doing nothing. They all agreed that it causes nothing but sadness and regret to force ourselves to do something when we need rest. But they also agreed that if there is something that they have to do, but do not complete, then they feel bad about it. However, they also underlined that if there is no task to do, forcing themselves to do something only cause tiredness.

To sum up, as a result of our interview with the young people, we had a chance to see the importance of free time and the priority of our requests. We can also say how beneficial and progressive the free time activities can be. Before concluding, I would like to add this quote that biased me from a book written by Ana Tan “Free time was the most precious time when you should be doing what you loved, or at least slowing down enough to remember what made your life worthwhile and happy.”

Author: Erkin Duman

Photo by Marija Gebert