On Hobbies

It was 3 am as I was feeding my daughter (because what else do you do with an 8 month old who wakes up crying and won't go back to sleep at 3 in the morning)... suddenly, it hit me! So many times I've tried to start a hobby or felt bad for not being consistent enough with the ones that I do end up coming back to time and time again. Well, that is a dumb way of thinking about it. We shouldn't feel bad if a hobby ends up not being our thing and we shouldn't see it as a waste of time.

First off, how am I to know if a hobby is for me if I never tried it? If you told me fifteen years ago that I would be into tapestry weaving, I would have laughed in your face. But here I am, enjoying it and wishing I did it more.

This brings me to my next point. I'm often feeling like I have too many hobbies and that I need to zero in and focus on just a very small selection. While it slows down my progress of improvement, it doesn't stop it. In fact, my hobby rotation allows me to take a break so that I don't get burnt out on any of my hobbies. Often times, when I come back to a hobby, I come back with a fresh mindset and improved ability. For example, whenever I come back to playing the piano, I usually find that I play better and it is easier than before.

Third, we gain something from every attempt at a hobby. Yes, we learn whether that hobby is for us and if we come back to it after a break, we can be even better. However, there is more to it. Whenever you do anything having to do with that hobby, you are educating yourself on that hobby. You become a more rounded individual with a wider expanse of knowledge to pull from. This allows you to talk easier with others because you've tried the hobby they are into. It makes it easier to know what they are talking about and respond to them in a coherent and relatable way.

Our increased knowledge on a particular hobby also makes it easier to incorporate that hobby into our stories. We can write about a character with furrowed brows weaving the weft across their warp because we've actually done it ourselves and know what we're talking about.

Just because you aren't doing a hobby at this stage of your life doesn't make it a waste of time nor does it mean you'll never come back to it. Think of hobbies as food that enhance your life. You might try one hobby and find that you don't like it. You might come back to it later in life and find that you've learned to like it. Or you might find that you still don't like it and you end up never liking it. That's okay too. Other times you do like it but you need to take a break from it so you don't get tired of having it all the time. Then there are our favorites. These are the foods we would pick if we had to choose only one food we could eat for the rest of our life. These flavorful foods keep life from being boring and tedious check lists of work that needs done. They break up the monotony of life. We use our hobbies every day to help us have a better sense of self in terms of what we like and don't like so that we can enjoy life rather than simply surviving.

If you've fallen into the same traps of thinking in this area, then I want to encourage you that it's okay to go through 50 or more hobbies before finding the one that clicks. Start that hobby you've been putting off trying. You'll never enjoy it if you don't try it.