ABSTRACT
History shows a cyclic movement regarding the perception of leisure, which starts with the centrality of happiness and the good life in ancient Greek philosophy, flows through epochs in which health, worship, idleness, pleasure, entertainment, recreation, luxury, play, celebration, self-realisation, and spirituality alternate, and ends again with well-being, thriving and happiness in current times. Chick points out that, based on anthropological research, many languages lack a direct translation of the word 'leisure', but still, people from other cultures do have some understanding, from their own contexts, of what leisure means. A concept, according to Van Leeuwen's theory, is more than a mere mental representation of an object: it is derived from embodied experience and therefore has its own 'story', based on a specific experience and rationality. The notion of the important runs like a golden thread through all the other different constituents of leisure ideas that have been teased out from their historical embedment.
