Smer vacaumtions are fun, relaxing and are essential to relax and recharge the batteries, after a long hard year at work. Study chores, homework and particularly exams can be stressful and by giving time to relax, you are allowing your-self to refresh, more productive, happier and get in the mood for work again when you get back. However, despite this there are still many people who simply do not bother to take one.
Holidaying brings the family together. Make it sure that you go to your grand-paa’s village with your parents or to a tour with your friends. Summer camps and tourism are the best ways to bring you out from your cave. Tourism with co-students helps developing personal communication skills. But make sure that even if you are on a holiday, read at least for half an hour to make reading a habit.
As discussed earlier in this column, ‘recreation’ is of two types, one being at the seller’s market and the other at buyer’s market. Many people are in the buyer’s market i.e., purchase recreation such as paying to watch cricket matches, movies etc. Be different from them.
A player stepping into a playground amongst standing ovation, an actor facing the camera for an emotional scene, a writer involved in writing a script when the entire world slept, a singer before a mike entering into a mood to sing a melodious song, a student painting the portrait of his mother in his summer holidays to present it to her… are called performers and enjoy more pleasure than people who watch a movie or cricket match in TV.
This does not mean that I am against your enjoying TV, reading a cartoon book or watching a movie. You must be able to prioritise your pleasures and deeds. Watching is happy. But performing is happier. The more you concentrate on your own performance; you enjoy more when compared to spending time on other’s works.
Education is recreation. Yes. I would like to give a different perception here for education. What do you mean by creation? Creation means, inventing a new product or finding out a new concept. Edison ‘invented’ an electric bulb and Newton discovered the concept of gravitational force. Students read those concepts in subjects like science, maths and edify themselves. Thus, education means understanding a concept originally created by others. In other words it is “re (again) creation”.
Recreation has other meaning, enjoying. When you get a right answer while solving a problem, you derive the same pleasure that a foot ball player gets while making a goal. In the examination, when your final balance sheet tallies, you feel elated as a golfer hitting the hole. Consider this and re – create your summer holidays with fun-filled education.
One evening I saw my son chatting with his friends at a four-road junction. He was 15 then. I purchased some shares and asked him to do part time business with them. I subscribed to a newspaper dealing with shares. Slowly his daily routine changed. He started enjoying his business. He experienced that the earning his pocket money was more charming than that of chatting at roadside. Business has become his re – recreation. One fine morning he lost everything, thanks to Harshad Mehtha. I told him not to worry, as there is no better teacher than experience. He again started it and slowly developed an insight that I have been advocating in all my personality development classes these days. That is ‘entertainment with education’.
PREFERENCES:

Do performers feel sorry for loosing an interesting experience like chatting on internet or talking in cell phone? No. Let us suppose there is a cartoon serial in TV on a Sunday morning at 10 a.m. and at the same time you have to play a cricket match. Would you feel sorry for missing the serial?

Develop the same concept towards education. Take the examples of Tiger Woods, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rakesh Sarma or Gopichand. They never grumbled to go the playground in a misty and chilled winter morning. They made it their profession and liked every moment of it. If ‘your profession’ is ‘studying’ take pleasure from it. There is no way out. Imagine yourself as an I.A.S officer representing your district before the Chief Minister. Imagine yourself a top class surgeon called to operate on the Prime Minister.

X-FACTOR:   
                             
There is one special quality in every person and it is called x-factor. Find it out. It may be painting, singing, cooking dancing etc. Build it up in your summer holidays. Once you are involved into the job of your liking, you start loving ‘you’ more. You prefer to be alone. This makes you reduce your gossiping and chatting time and use the same for more productive work.

Teaching your younger brother or sister enhances your affection bank balance with them. Listening to a new raga, enjoying a perfect holiday, knowing how to cook when your mother is not feeling well…everything is either creation or healthy recreation. Animals have no “t-y” net worth increase. They don’t enhance their wisdom or pleasures in their life time. Some people also just live the same way.

Finally... the exams come and the exams go, you will be there, sane, smiling and ready to enjoy the summer. Cheer up.