Outline:
- Introduction.
- Enjoying holidays.
- Abusing holidays.
We all know what holidays are. We have enjoyed them right from our childhood. They mean for us colour, sweetness and liberty. New clothes, dainty dishes and freedom to do or not to do anything. This is how we, as children, spent our holidays. And in our Pakistani calendar, there are several of them. Every month has its share of holidays. They are either religious or social. They are days sacred to the memory of some holy saints, fairs and festivals. They make us remember some noble deed done by our great heroes of history. We cherish their memory and derive light and inspiration from them. Else, have they are just social events when we meet friends and relatives and a pleasant time. In addition, we have bad days off in our school time when some great event or person came to visit us or address us. In short we are quite familiar with holidays and we have not ceased to loe them as we grow. Holidays are meant for enjoyment, as other days are meant for work. All work and no play makes Munnu a dull body.
We, too, have rest and relaxation on certain days in the month. We enjoy these days for several reasons. Firstly, we want change from dull routine. Or rather, routine work becomes dull if it is continues. So we take a day off and call it a holiday, a day meant for no work but rest. Secondly, we want colour and variety in life. We do not get any opportunity to enjoy this unless we set a day apart for the same. So we dress and eat live in a different manner on a holiday. Thirdly, the working days do not give an opportunity for dreaming. They are very much pressed due to work, study, and industry. Our thoughts are centred in the immediate present. We think only of the day’s work. Now such an experience is not good for our mental, moral or even physical health. So we take a holiday and think and feel in a different manner. We dream and remember the past or hope for the future. We dream and remember the past or hope for the future. We intertain other thoughts on such days. We live in thoughts of great men and women whose memory is cherished on holidays.[the_ad id=”17141″]
So holidays are most welcome. They are really holy days, since they are sacred to the memory of great ones.
But, there is a but for all this; we know that only days are likely to become most unholy for many of us. That is to say, we can abuse our holidays in many ways. Or else we agitate for more holidays and become unholy in our demand for the same. All play and no work is as bad for Munnu as the reverse of it is. Extremes are bad. Holidays should not encourage a desire for idleness and thoughtless living. We must not develop a taste for holidays for holiday’s sake. It must be for the sake of rest, worship, change from routine and good enjoyment. We must not develop the taste for idling away our days. This craving. for thoughts leisure lands up in restlessness. We do not get real rest if we do not properly use our days of rest. Our desires become unlimited. They will rule us if we do not rule them. And thus we will be ceaselessly desiring for this and that if we desire more holidays than are good for us.
The place of holidays in our lives is a very important one: Only they must really be days of holy thoughts and holy living. They are there because men want leisure and rest from labour. They are useful for giving us rest so that we can resunie our work with more vigour. So the end and aim of holidays is not really rest and leisure. This is only incidental. The real aim of holidays is to renew ourselves for more work. For life is a ceaseless struggle and holidays give freshness to our faded spirits. Let us have holidays by all means; but let us be careful that we don’t get them by bad means. We know that in modern times we, the students, often agitate for holidays most stupidly. Let us stop this and be careful in the untilization of our holidays. Holidays are good servants but bad masters. We should not be slaves to holidays. That is to say, we shwuld not demand for more holidays than are good for our physical, mental and moral health.
