Do you have freizeitstress syndrome?

I am Home from my first class of second level German and the chapter the Tutor took us through is still lingering fresh in my mind. By the way, the Tutor was a young Dame working part time as a language Teacher, who I believe was not more than 22 yrs of age. Hmmn...at the offset, all my concentration was riveted at her two primary arguments*. Ok, it was time for ground zero. The topic was "freizeitstress" which translates into "Free time stress". What a topic! Yes, this was yet another proof for my belief of German over-engineering - It's in everything and everywhere. Ubiquitous I call.

The situation was that one of the two friends was guiding the other to overcome freizeitstress. The stress that over-engineered souls go through while picking the right activity they wish to do (among many of their interests) in their free time. Germans, the text said, of 148 hours a week have 77 hours of freizeit. Of these 77 hours which includes for example weekends, often (some) Junta get into the dilemma of doing one of many they want to do - the result? sTrEsS - which in turn has the obvious consequence of screwing up their work days - not to mention that this subsequently leads to less effectiveness and I guess which ultimately jeopardises the German economy. Catastrophy!

The syndrome is having an ever increasing trend and Doctors have started showing up on Television giving Gyan on leisurely enjoying the freetime.

A brainstorming session followed and we were supposed to opine. I was the first to start and I made faces as if it was the most ridiculous of all I have come across. I went on to say that I do not suffer from this syndrome for I enjoy my weekends, rather I keep looking for my weekends all through the week :-) I make my weekend plans very much in advance and usually its decided as to what I shall be doing for the next two to three weekends. Hmmn..my comrades nodded and seemed to agree. Good attempt. It was the turn of others and to my surprise, a few of them did agree that they often do have some confusion as to what they should be doing in their free time. They were torn by options like - Cycling, Theater, Cafe, Swimming, Mini Golf, Tennis, Books, TV, Shopping or just being at Home. My inner Being couldn't stop giggling at them....They were suffering from freizeitstress syndrome.

While on my way back to the parking lot, I started attempting to figure out my weekend plan and an avalanche of ideas started fighting for existence - finish the book I started reading last week/take my Bike out at least once/time to clean/prepare for that important meeting on monday/rock concert n beer/snooker/catch up with Sonali and Pradeep/drive/blog/hjuy../......Darwin's theory of Survival of the Fittest didn't seem to apply here. I gave up.

Afterall, Darwin cannot be wrong! There was one winner - the one which was silently peeping from that cornermost lobe of my brain: "I do have symptoms of freizeitstress syndrome"

Do you?!


* For folks who got it, the owner of the metaphor is a very lovely friend of mine and I take liberty to reproduce it here, am no Plagiarist :-)