Personal life

[2] People identified with their social role in their community and engaged in activities based on necessity rather than on personal choice.

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.

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.

[citation needed] The notion of a personal life, as currently understood in the west is in part an artefact of modern Western society.

[15][need quotation to verify][16] 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] George Lakoff sees the metaphor of life as "a journey" as a noteworthy structuring idea in "our culture".

There is a growing[quantify] trend, however, towards living more holistically and minimising such rigid distinctions between work and play, in order to achieve an "appropriate" work–life balance.

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.

[citation needed] The way in which individuals make use of their spare time also plays an important role in defining their personal lives.

Playing chess or undertaking creative writing might also be considered as demanding as these require a fair amount of mental effort.