Having More by Doing Less: The Paradox of Leisure Constraints in Later Life

Abstract

A considerable literature now documents the vast array of constraints that keep people from participating in or enjoying recreation and leisure activities. Consistently these factors have been regarded as negative and deserving of elimination, negotiation, or navigation. Recently, however, researchers have argued (in separate chapters in Jackson, 2005a) that constraints often exist in a beneficial relationship with leisure activity patterns and should, as a result, be studied for potential positive effects and managed accordingly. The case for the beneficial aspects of constraints to leisure has been made mostly with respect to aging, though arguably it applies to all ages. The model of successful aging that has received the most theoretical and empirical support in recent years is that of selective optimization with compensation (Baltes & Carstensen, 1996). We argue here for a proposition derived from this model that encountering and accepting constraint, while initially painful in many cases, is often life-enhancing. This paper explores this proposition and six implications for managing leisure experience in the course of adjusting to change and limitations throughout life.