Read an Excerpt

Introduction

This book is really about more than getting the best deal on entertainment. Even if we could afford the most lavishly expensive diversions available, they’re less valuable–and ultimately
less satisfying–than the kinds of entertainment promoted in this book. So not only will you be getting something here for free…you’ll be getting the best for free.

In fact, the qualities, attitudes, mindsets, and skills that let us enjoy to the max any kind of entertainment are best learned in the kinds of activities you’ll be guided through in this book.

So, at root, this is more about learning to enjoy better all of life than about being entertained more economically. Though the dollar savings are no small matter. Based on a conservative
average expenditure of $7.50 per person for a paid entertainment event, this book will save a family of four about $3,000 annually.

If You’re Bored, You’re Boring
The foundational concept here is probably this: truly satisfying entertainment comes from an active attitude and approach, not passive. It’s about taking the lead to engage in what’s happening all around us, knowing there’ll always be something interesting and delightful about it.

In other words, you’re only as bored as you choose to be.

As our five children were growing up, my wife and I tried to teach them that if a person is bored, it’s because he himself is boring. It means he’s self-focused (instead of looking outward with attentiveness and a readiness to interact). Who could be more boring than someone sitting there, demanding to be entertained? It’s as if that person is chained in the prison of self.

So you may want to strike from your family’s vocabulary the phrase “I’m bored.” Replace it with an attitude that affirms, “There’s something enjoyable and interesting here, and I’m going
to find it.” Build that into your family…and you’ll all be not only happier and more satisfied but also more free.

You’ll also be more ready for life’s realities that go beyond entertainment. Half a century ago, in a letter written to a mother, C. S. Lewis quoted eighteenth-century British author Samuel Johnson: “To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavor.” One reason to seek such happiness, Lewis said, is “to
prepare for being happy in our own real home hereafter.” May this book help increase the kind of happiness in your family that indeed nudges all of you toward heave and its lasting
joys.