Most people often see entertainment as an optional pursuit in their life that, if left out, would not affect them much in any shape or form. Some young yet enthusiastic individuals might even regard it as a hindrance to their pursuit of the lifelong goals they have set for themselves to achieve. While hustle and grind for the achievement of one’s dream may surely be a very brave and respectable venture, one should never forget to live and cherish the moments of joy. Because these memories make the journey memorable and worthwhile. These choices of investment in leisure for one’s own self and for loved ones make the process more enjoyable. Not only that, learning to live the moments, or, in other words, entertaining yourself also helps release pressure and prevent you from burnout. Thus, it helps your pursuit of dreams by keeping you energized, focused, and never tired of your goals in the long run. We learn everything with the left lobe of our brain, and there is the right lobe that consolidates that info for you, and in order for it to do that, it needs some form of entertainment since this lobe is the pleasure control center of your brain.

Entertainment can take many forms. The most common one would be the imagination of the human mind. Being the centrum of creative expression, the human mind is more than capable of entertaining one’s own self. Throughout history, we have seen paintings and sculptures carved by primitive humans, indicating the methods used to entertain themselves. This creative form of expression has only improved with the progress of civilization. Now humans read and write literature to fascinate and entertain themselves. Book reading is one of the most immersive and intellectual ways that one can entertain themselves with. Fantasy literature just opens up a whole new world to an entire generation. Literature like Lord of the Rings or 451 Fahrenheit is massively entertaining and is remembered to this day because of the value they provide to the reader. One can always enjoy book reading where the writer walks you through a unique story that you have the liberty to visualize in your head, imagine the character the way you want, and create your own narrative of the story. This entire activity is so immersive and joyous as it offers great escapism from the world that every person long for every once in a while. You get to shut out the whole world around you for some time and not care about the pressing responsibilities for just a few moments of your day. This helps to keep stress in check and helps to declutter your brain with a good dose of Dopamine and Serotonin. Not only that, you always get to learn through books as they are lifelong experiences and lessons from people condensed over a few hundred pages. This provides you joy and offers great value for growth to the reader.

 Another great way of entertaining yourself is through the creativity that cinema has to offer. This is a relatively modern medium of expression of the creative side of human nature. A good movie is just a two to three-hour investment but has a lifelong positive impact on the viewer with a key life lesson, and not only that, it provides a great medium of entertainment. Numerous films and tv show genres such as Comedy, Wit, and Sarcasm uplift a person’s mood after a long and hard day of office chores and work. Also, the benefit of tv shows and web series is that they are just twenty to thirty-minute episodes, so even a person with a comparatively tight schedule can take some time for them at the end of the day. Good action-packed movies such as Rush Hour, Around the world in 80 Days, or Beverly Hills Cop are entertaining movies for a good meaningful time pass. Not just comedic movies, but fantastic adventure movies that are actually based on books or comics also offer you a great deal of enjoyment as the fantasy characters and worlds that you once visualized can now be seen on the big screen, which in itself is an exhilarating prospect to be a part of. Movies such as the Lord of The Rings Trilogy, Game of Thrones television series, Harry Potter movies, and The Avengers series are just some examples of massive crowd-pullers that have a massive fanbase all over the world. All of this is for the right reasons as they offer a massive entertainment value to children and adults alike. People living to see the characters they look up to on the big screen is perhaps the best form of entertainment that one could ask for, and they sure do help people keep a balance between their work life and their much-needed entertainment as a social species.

Although entertainment is definitely important in life, a person should be able to balance the two. Only focusing on entertaining yourself while neglecting your responsibilities is just as bad as burning yourself out and not practicing self-care because of your pending assignments. The key should be to strike an intricate balance between the two activities as both are essential to building you as a person. Both have a major part to play in your growth and should be given their due importance whenever needed. That being said, I would like to end with a brilliant quote from the book, Dead Poets Society that sums it up all too well, “We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for”.  Don’t forget to entertain yourself!!