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Leisure and Meaning-Making: The Pursuit of a Meaningful Life Through Leisure

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First Online:
Part of the Leisure Studies in a Global Era book series (LSGE)

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to identify and describe the role of leisure in the pursuit of a meaningful life, informed by the literature from interdisciplinary perspectives. Specifically, the chapter emphasizes the contributions of leisure engagement to promoting and/or maintaining: (a) a joyful life, (b) a connected life, (c) a discovered life, (d) a composed life and (e) a hopeful and empowered life. Not only do these elements seem to represent distinct factors of meaningful engagement with life through leisure, but multiple meanings can also be gained from a single leisure engagement experience, and these meaning themes can be interconnected. Considering a unique and distinct characteristic of leisure as freely chosen, autonomous and intrinsically motivated engagement, research on meaning-making and meaningful engagement with life seems to benefit greatly from examining a variety of leisure phenomena in their meaning-making functions. The ideas/insights presented in this chapter seem to provide a useful framework to advance this important, emerging area of inquiry. Apparently, leisure’s potential contributions to meaningful, engaged living should not be underestimated either conceptually or practically.

Keywords

Leisure Well-being Meaning-making 
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© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.University of AlbertaEdmontonCanada

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