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{{Short description|Course or state of an individual's life}}{{about||album by The Thermals|Personal Life (album)}}{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}{{Use British English|date= December 2016}} Personal life is the course or state of an individual's life, especially when viewed as the sum of personal choices contributing to one's personal identity.BOOK, Baker, Maureen,weblink Choices and Constraints in Family Life, 2010, Oxford University Press, 978-0-19-543159-9, 2nd, Don Mills, Ontario, 1, In this book, I argue that intimate relationships are certainly influenced by our personal preferences but to a large extent our 'choices' are shaped by family circumstances and events in the wider society ..., Maureen Baker (sociologist), Apart from hunter-gatherers, most pre-modern peoples' time was limited by the need to meet necessities such as food and shelter through subsistence farming; leisure time was scarce.BOOK , People identified with their social role in their community and engaged in activities based on necessity rather than on personal choice.{{citation needed|date= July 2019}} Privacy in such communities was rare.{{citation needed|date= July 2019}}The modern conception of "personal life" is an offshoot of modern Western society. Modern people tend to distinguish their work activities from their personal life and may seek work–life balance.BOOK , It is a person's choices and preferences outside of work that define personal life, including one's choice of hobbies, cultural interests, manner of dress, mate, friends, and so on. In particular, what activities one engages in during leisure-time defines a person's personal life.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}} Religious authorities, moralists, managers and personal-development gurus have seized on the concept of an individual life as a fulcrum for potential control and manipulation.BOOK BOOK , BOOK , People in Western countries, such as the United States and Canada, tend to value privacy. Privacy includes both information privacy and decisional privacy; people expect to be left alone with respect to intimate details of their life and they expect to be free from undue control by others.

History

(File:11-stages-womanhood-1840s.jpg|thumb|"The Life & Age of Woman – Stages of Woman's Life from the Cradle to the Grave", 1849)In the past, before modern technology largely alleviated issues of economic scarcity in industrialised countries, most people spent a large portion of their time attempting to provide their basic survival needs, including water, food, and protection from the weather.BOOK, Van Loon, Hendrik, The Story of Mankind, 1921, Boni and Liveright, Inc., New York,weblink Humans needed survival skills for the sake of both themselves and their community; food needed to be harvested and shelters needed to be maintained.JOURNAL, Gupta, Anil K., Origin of agriculture and domestication of plants and animals linked to early Holocene climate amelioration, Current Science, 10 July 2004, 87, 1,weblinkweblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20041031122606weblink">weblink dead, 31 October 2004, There was little privacy in a community, and people identified one another according to their social role.BOOK, Barnard, Alan J., Hunter-gatherers in history, archaeology and anthropology, 2004, Berg Publishers, 978-1-85973-825-2, Jobs were assigned out of necessity rather than personal choice.WEB, Why did anthropologists get interested in peasants?,weblink Experience Rich Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury, 26 February 2011, Furthermore, individuals in many ancient cultures primarily viewed their self-existence under the aspect of a larger social whole, often one with mythological underpinnings which placed the individual in relation to the cosmos.BOOK, Percy, Walker, Lost in the cosmos: the last self-help book, 2000, Macmillan, 978-0-312-25399-8, Walker Percy,weblink People in such cultures found their identity not through their individual choices—indeed, they may not have been able to conceive a choice which was purely individual. Such individuals, if asked to describe themselves, would speak of the collective of which they were part: the tribe, the Church, the nation.BOOK, Ashton-Jones, Evelyn, The Gender reader, 1991, Allyn and Bacon, Boston, 978-0-205-12806-8, 252, Lindholm, Cherry, Life behind the Veil, Charles Lindholm, Even in the 21st century, survival issues dominate in many countries and societies. For example, the continents of Africa and Asia are still largely mired in poverty and third-world conditions, without technology, secure shelter, or reliable food sources. In such places, the concepts of a "personal life", "self-actualization", "personal fulfillment", or "privacy" are often unaffordable luxuries.JOURNAL, 10.1037/h0054346, Maslow, A. H., A Theory of Human Motivation, Psychological Review, 1943, 50, 4, 370–396, 10983/23610,weblink 10.1.1.334.7586, The English philosopher John Locke (1632–1704) figures among the pioneers in discussing the concept of individual rights. In the 17th century he promoted the natural rights of the individual to life, liberty, and property, and included the pursuit of happiness as one of the individual's goals.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}

Sociology

{{OR section|date=August 2019}}File:Gamescom 2009 - Wii (5206).jpg|thumb|People spending their leisure time playing computer gamescomputer gamesThe notion of a personal life, as currently understood in the west is in part an artefact of modern Western society. People in the United States of America, especially, place a high value on privacy. Since the colonial period, commentators have noted Americans' individualism and their pursuit of self-definition.BOOK, de Tocqueville, Alexis, Democracy in America, 1840, Saunders and Otley, London,weblink {{qn|date= August 2016}}Compare: BOOK, Schleifer, James T., James T. Schleifer, 5: How Does Democracy Threaten Liberty?, The Chicago Companion to Tocqueville's Democracy in America,weblink Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2012, 82, 978-0226737058, 8 August 2016, For Tocqueville individualism meant the habit of living isolated from your fellows, of not concerning yourself with any public affairs, and of abandoning those matters to the care of the government as the only clearly visible representative of common interests. Like democratic materialism, democratic individualism led to the death of civic life and opened the door to any despotic power that would assume responsibility for shared interests. ... We need to recognize that ... Tocqueville ... treated the United States as something of an exception. He had described the American republic as shielded from the worst effects of democratic materialism; in his analysis, it was also insulated from individualism., Indeed, the United States Declaration of Independence and the Constitution explicitly raise the pursuit of happiness and the expectation of privacy to the level of rights.{{Citation needed|date= December 2016}}George Lakoff sees the metaphor of life as "a journey" as a noteworthy structuring idea in "our culture".BOOK, Lakoff, George, George Lakoff, 1979, Contemporary theory of metaphor, Ortony, Andrew, Metaphor and Thought,weblink Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1993, 223–224, 978-0521405614, 8 August 2016, Long-term, purposeful activities are journeys. ... In our culture, life is assumed to be purposeful, that is, we are expected to have goals in life. In the event[-]structure metaphor, purposes are destinations and purposeful action is self-propelled motion towards a destination. A purposeful life is a journey. Goals in life are destinations on the journey. ... Choosing a means to achieve a goal is choosing a path to destination. ... [T]he love is a journey metaphor inherits the structure of the life is a journey metaphor. ... a career is a journey., Compare the traditional Chinese concept of tao.In modern times, many people have come to think of their personal lives as separate from their work.BOOK , {{qn|date=October 2018}}This 9 to 5 paradigm regards work and recreation as distinct; one is either on the job or not, and the transition is abrupt. Employees have certain hours they are bound to work, and work during recreational time is rare. This may{{original research inline|date= August 2016}} reflect the continuing specialisation of jobs and the demand for increased efficiency, both at work and at home. The common phrase "Work hard, play hard" illustrates this mindset. There is a growing{{quantify|date= August 2016}} trend, however, towards living more holistically and minimising such rigid distinctions between work and play, in order to achieve an "appropriate" work–life balance.{{citation needed|date= August 2016}}The concept of personal life also tends to be associated{{by whom|date= August 2016}} with the way individuals dress, the food they eat, their schooling and further education as well as their hobbies, leisure activities, and cultural interests. Increasingly, in the developed world, a person's daily life is also influenced by leisure-time use of consumer electronics such as televisions, computers and the Internet, mobile phones and digital cameras.WEB {{qn|date= August 2016}}Other factors affecting personal life include individuals' health, personal relationships, pets as well as home and personal possessions.{{citation needed|date= August 2016}}

Leisure activities

File:Kabukicho at night 02.JPG|thumb|Kabukicho is TokyoTokyoThe way in which individuals make use of their spare time also plays an important role in defining their personal lives. In general, leisure activities can be categorised as either passive, in cases when no real effort is required, or active, when substantial physical or mental energy is needed.JOURNAL, Stebbins, Robert A., Choice and Experiential Definitions of Leisure, LSA Newsletter, November 2002, 63,weblink Passive activities include watching television, listening to music, watching sports activities or going to the cinema. The individual simply relaxes without any special effort.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}Active activities may be more or less intensive ranging from walking, through jogging and cycling to sports such as tennis or football. Playing chess or undertaking creative writing might also be considered as demanding as these require a fair amount of mental effort.{{Citation needed|date=December 2016}}Based on 2007 data, a US survey on use of leisure time found that the daily use of leisure time by individuals over 15 averaged 4.9 hours. Of this, more than half (2.6 hours) went on watching TV while only 19 minutes involved active participation in sports and exercise.BOOK, Leisure Time on an Average Day,weblink American Time Use Survey, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26 February 2011,

Privacy

(File:Roscheid Hunsrückhaus innen.jpg|thumb|The room often reflects many aspects of one's personal life.)Privacy has been understood as entailing two different concepts; namely informational privacy and decisional privacy. The former concerns the right to be left alone in respect of the most intimate details of one's personal life and is a more accepted doctrine than the latter which concerns freedom from undue regulation and control.BOOK, Kumar, Krishna, Public and private in thought and practice : perspectives on a grand dichotomy, 997, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago; London, 978-0-226-88624-4, 383, etal,

See also

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• Avocation
• Everyday life
• Human condition
• Human ecology
• Life stance
• Lifestyle (sociology)
• Lifeworld
• Maslow's hierarchy of needs
• Meaning of life
• Personal finance
• Physical Quality of Life Index
• Quality time
• Real life
• Simple living

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References

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Further reading

• BOOK, Ways of Living: Work, Community and Lifestyle Choice, 2009, Blyton, Paul, Blundsdon, Betsy, Reed, Ken, 978-0-230-20228-3,
• BOOK, The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, 1901, Freud, Sigmund, Sigmund Freud,
• BOOK, The Everyday Life Reader, 2001, Highmore, Ben, 978-0-415-23025-4,
• BOOK, Critique of Everyday Life, 1947, Lefebvre, Henri, Henri Lefebvre,
• BOOK,weblink The Sociological Ambition, 2001, Shilling, Chris, Mellor, Philip A., SAGE Publications, 978-0-7619-6548-0,
• BOOK, English Life and Leisure. A social study, 1952, Rowntree, Seebohm, Seebohm Rowntree,
• BOOK, The Revolution of Everyday Life, 1967, Vaneigem, Raoul, Raoul Vaneigem, The Revolution of Everyday Life,

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