Sport, the Arts and Other Activities

We need to locate our personal recreational interests within a practical number of sports, the arts and other hobbies – how we develop our recreational interests with other people in our lives within the context of the time that is available to us and what we enjoy.

Recreational activities are essential to our feeling of fulfilment, purpose and enjoyment in our everyday life. Finding activities that keep our bodies and minds active is essential to growing our creativity, innovation and depth as healthy and happy people. It’s important to regularly make and renew commitments to teams, groups, or activities to ensure that we can continue to enjoy these benefits.

Playing sports helps us maintain our physical health all while learning the tactics and skills of the game. We simultaneously get to learn and practice our teamwork, communication and time management skills through training, playing and competing alongside our teammates. In the same way, the arts offer us similar structure outcomes within some of the richest areas of human experience. Visual arts, music, and theatre are just some of the places we are presented with opportunities to connect with our individual and shared humanity through what we create. Other pursuits such as public speaking, debating, and traditional activities that are specific to our cultural context also provide us with skills, community, and an enhanced understanding of how best to manage and approach day-to-day life.

“The arts are an essential element of education, just like reading, writing, and arithmetic…music, dance, painting, and theater are all keys that unlock profound human understanding and accomplishment.”

William Bennett

The learning that we derive from our experiences will have myriad other applications. Learning how to manage our time, maintaining a healthy lifestyle, and acquiring discipline through training with a team are habits that we can apply to our study, our work, and our relationships. In this sense, engaging in enjoyable activities like sport and art has wide-reaching impact on our overall growth and development. Not only can we be more creative or more physically capable but we can also become wiser.

Staying committed to these activities isn’t straightforward. Holding ourselves to a standard of excellence and continued improvement goes well beyond the initial choice we make in our heads. It requires active repetition and consistent application. We need to take pride in practicing our skills and challenging ourselves so that we can fulfil the aspiration of turning a simple habit into something that is so much more. This applies not only for our own sakes, but for the sakes of our teammates and our colleagues.

This is, of course, because co-curricular activities double as an environment in which we can make friends and build personal and professional networks. Teamwork builds trust through experience and accumulation of knowledge that each person is going to do their job for the team. This trust is built through open communication and honesty over time. Everyone has different , talents, and strengths. We should admire others for their different skills and passions and support their successes and achievements rather than giving in to jealousy and envy. The friendships we make can help us perform better in our chosen sport or artistic pursuit and they can also leave a meaningful impact on us as we connect with people through an area of our lives that provides us with happiness, purpose, and the realisation of an honourable ambition.

We can contemplate our contribution to Sports, The Arts and Other Activities by considering the following questions:

• Do I make or renew a significant commitment to at least one or two teams, groups, or activities each year?
• Do I feel comfortable trying out new sports or cultural activities to see if they might interest me and meet my needs?
• Do I take pride in practicing and developing my skills as a member of a team or group?
• Do I value the friendships I make in the activities in which I participate, and the personal and professional networks I build?
• Do I admire what others with varied talents and passions do and take an interest in their success and achievement?