All play and no work

" If all the years were playing holidays,
To sport would be as tedious as to work."
- Shakespeare.

From childhood, I never remember feeling that another holiday is a waste. May be because, end of each holiday meant beginning of school which was 'Monday Blues' at its height. Life could have been different if there was something other than holiday and school to make that transition not seem so abrupt.

That one holiday I will never forget in my life is the one I took at age 10 with my sister who was 9 years old then. I do not remember why we had those holidays. Oh even before we go into why, I should mention that I just read about change in the Child accompaniment policy of Valley Metro - Children under the age of eight must be accompanied by a responsible person. Earlier this limit was age 6. The note also had the definition of a responsible person as someone who had control over the child. In our case, I was the responsible person, but I dont think I had the real control. I cannot recall why we had the holiday, but early in the morning when it was still dark, we were at a railway station , where still our hostel warden was inclined to stop us from going home as we were kids. There were many other students on the trip, but their stop was earlier than ours. By some lapse of getting caught in myriad of things that a person has to think, the point of objection slipped from the warden's head and the next thing we know, we are on a train to go home. The only thing I remember about the train trip is that we passed some mountains on the way. They must have just seemed so because the track tunneled through that land. Once we got down the train, the route to our house was straight. Only thing was that , while the train station was at one end, our house was at the other. As my sister and I kept walking, halfway we saw our neighbor and we knew we were in the right town. This neighbor owned lots of Readers Digest. Unfortunately, I was only at an age to pass them off as incomprehensible.

I cannot remember if I then had the fear of missing the stop.

Once I forewent a holiday for work, but that project got scrapped after I came back from another holiday. I did enjoy the work.

All the way from home to bus-stop to school, one thing that would constantly worry me was, have I forgotten some homework. In grad school, one doesnt have to worry about this. Homeworks rule. Another big fear was not being able to answer when asked to stand up to answer a question. I lost this fear only when I came to undergrad, when professors stopped asking questions that way.

If it was holiday and school then, it is work and vacation now. Where does leisure fit in? I once read that at one point in time, some people didnt mind what they had to do for work as long as they could do as they wish in leisure. Goethe's novel 'Wilhelm Meister' stresses on the importance of choosing ones vocation. But if one choses what they wish for vocation, is there a chance left for another as leisure. If Wish, is seen as just one to be able to focus properly, then for those who work in their interest field, if leisure is occupied with the same, is that when tey turn workaholics? And for all those, whose wish is pending for leisure, do work and leisure seem mutually exclusive. When exactly are we equipped to delineate these?
To merge or not to merge...