Learning to Have a Hobby

“You could make so much money!”

I’ve heard this refrain so many times I’ve honestly started to hate it. I used to be an avid artist. Every time I made something for fun, somebody would ask if I’d ever thought about selling art. Making art and making money became connected in my head and I became obsessed with making my work into something I could sell. And then I stopped making art.

Up until that point, art had been a hobby. Something I did to escape the world. Tying it to money took the fun out of it for me.

Hobbies are supposed to be our way of taking time for ourselves. And I get it, money’s tight these days, any extra income matters. But what’s the point if we’re sacrificing our health to get it?

There’s this concept called hustle culture, which is a push to get ahead by any means, that we’ve become far too accustomed to. We started doing it in high school: good grades and working a job and being in clubs and sports. Sometimes we did it because we enjoyed everything we did, but also because it would look good for college applications.

How many of us spent so much time exhausted? With no time for ourselves? And here we are, still doing it.

Not to be the guy on the lawn yelling about “kids these days”, but how much of our little free time is taken up by screens? Social media, movies, shows, video games, which can all be fun, but they don’t compare to doing something offline.

The difference has been studied for years. One of the articles I found on the subject is from 2012. The idea that physically making something is mentally beneficial isn’t new. There’s something satisfying about working with your hands and being able to hold the result.

Further, hobbies can be points of connection with other people. They can be conversation starters and ways to spend more time with people you otherwise wouldn’t.

Hobbies are a wonderful way to take a break from the world and do something for yourself. It doesn’t need to be good, it just needs to be.

Kai Spahr is a Buhler sophomore studying journalism and the Opinion Page Editor.

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