Last summer, while staying in the Swedish archipelago with my wife and young daughter, a neighbour came by with his own daughter.

“Would you mind looking after her for a while?” he asked from a distance, blocking the evening sun with his hand. He wore an excessively tight running outfit and Oakley sunglasses.

“Sure, no problem,” I replied. ”When do you think you’ll be back?”

“I’ll be back …” he said, peeking at his smartphone, which was wrapped tightly around his pulsating bicep. “I’ll be back in about … two hours.”

“Wow, that’s a long run,” I said admiringly, thinking I should probably do the same thing – perhaps next year.

Only later did it dawn on me. If I had gone over to his place, and suggested he and his wife take care of my daughter for a few hours, because I wanted to lie in a hammock and read, how would they have responded? They would probably have given me a helping hand – they’re nice people, no doubt about that – but they certainly wouldn’t have been impressed. After informing the rest of the neighbourhood about my request, which I’m sure they would have done, everyone would probably have agreed that I was a rather lazy and self-interested figure.

In a time of 24/7 capitalism, when we struggle to distinguish work from non-work, it’s now considered essential to use all our free time as effectively as possible. Time away from work, especially holiday time, has become yet another opportunity for production and consumption. I was reminded of this recently when reading about the trend for so-called sight jogging, or sightseeing-on-the-run, which is being offered in many cities across the world, including the UK. This allows health-minded tourists to enjoy the main attractions of a city while feeling the sweat pouring down their backs. In London, joggers can run across the city, making short stops at places such as the London Eye, Big Ben and Buckingham Palace, listening to historical anecdotes interspersed with the sound of their own panting.

Jogging was not a customary way to spend one’s holiday until recently, and sight jogging is no doubt a distinctly contemporary phenomenon. But the idea that the holiday is a suitable time for pursuing health ideals and goals goes back a long way.

In the late 19th century, as working-class people began to earn enough money to embark on shorter holidays, many employers and politicians were anxious that they would spend all their free time getting drunk in the pub and causing trouble in music halls and fairgrounds.

The historian John K Walton describes how the seaside excursion was seen as an excellent counter-attraction to such despicable activities.

A visit to the sea, politicians believed, would be educative and conducive to good health. The fresh air and sea was thought to have a twin benefit: a) it allowed workers to recuperate so that they could return refreshed to their jobs; and b) it taught them to appreciate and emulate middle-class habits.

This was part of a larger attempt to domesticate the working class, keeping them away from the pub, and teaching them how to value a walk in the park and a trip to the museum. Such was the morally commendable way to spend one’s free time.

Today, the moral prescription is somewhat different. Like the sight joggers, who simultaneously improve their fitness and explore new places, we are expected now to squeeze as much value as possible out of our holidays.

There is no shortage of guides and recommendations for how to achieve this. One website informs us that the holiday presents a perfect opportunity to get in shape. Another suggests that we should use our time off to reflect on our career goals. If the pressure to maximize the holiday is becoming too nerve-racking, there are experts who can be consulted. One life coach describes how she helps clients to carefully plan their holidays. To avoid conflict, she instructs, they need to set goals regarding what they want to do, and how they want to be.

Sight jogging is an optimal way to use one’s holiday. It combines historical education and physical exercise with ordinary tourism. It is the kind of hyper-productive, multitasking activity that has become popular today, not least in the workplace. Walking meetings are preferred because they make us think better. Treadmill desks are used because they allow us to exercise while working. And then we have that revolutionary invention the bicycle desk which, if we pedal hard enough, will not only get us in great shape but also generate enough electricity to keep our laptops alive.

We work and we exercise, whether we are on holiday or at work. It is a requirement to pass as a moral individual, but also supposed to be fun and rewarding. So much so that some employers have made exercise mandatory during working hours, rewarding obedient employees with higher salaries and punishing the disobedient with less money.

In the same paternal fashion, some firms make sure to arrange fitness challenges over the summer holiday. After all, they don’t want their employees to return at the end of the holiday out of shape.

Whereas a refreshing walk in the park and a tour through a museum were once thought to improve the moral standard of the working class, many of us are now frantically exercising not just to improve our fitness but to demonstrate our moral worth.

Keeping oneself physically active during the holiday hasn’t always been the norm. But as far back as 1882, at around the same time that people started to populate the English seaside resorts, Nietzsche warned that we were rapidly moving in that direction, writing: “Soon we may well reach the point where people can no longer give in to the desire for a vita contemplativa (that is, taking a walk with ideas and friends) without self-contempt and a bad conscience.”

At a time when being inactive is seen as morally disgraceful, and most of us fear the vita contemplativa, we might want to recall the words of Blaise Pascal, that “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”

Exercising during the holiday may not be the source of all evil, and sitting quietly in a room alone is unlikely to solve all the world’s problems. But allowing oneself to spread out on a hammock and entirely forget about work, without feelings of self-contempt and a bad conscience, may go some way to saving the holiday.