Are we Indeed Pursuing Hobbies?
What is a hobby? The traditional definition of hobby says “Hobby is an activity or interest pursued for pleasure or relaxation and not as a main occupation”. Hence, when someone is asked casually or even in an interview about their hobby, answers like cooking, painting, singing, dancing, etc are quite common because this is what they love to do for joy.
However, with the advent of technology and new ideas pouring in, there has been a shift in how we have begun to perceive the word’ hobby’. Earlier, a hobby was confined to doing something in one’s free time; and the product of the time and efforts so invested, used to remain confined to oneself too. However, today, what we love to do is all over Instagram. Is it not? We have started pursuing our hobbies to show it out to the world and not for our own satisfaction. “If I am a good cook, why not teach it to the world through a YouTube channel. It costs nothing, anyway….” are among the first thoughts these days when one starts cooking in one’s free time.
Hobbies have come a long way to be viewed as a side-hustle and have become a source to earn extra income. It is good in two ways- firstly, one gets an extra source of income. Definitely, the global pandemic of 2020 has made us realize that it is always better to have a second source of income, and earning money out of hobbies is an excellent idea, provided one is good at it. Secondly, one’s talent is available to the world. This will undoubtedly result in much more productive work.
Therefore, people have learnt to monetize their talent and passion. In our opinion, the value of a design created for money is a ton more worth than the same design done for recreation. But here is the question- Is that money more valuable than the peace one gets while doing something solely for oneself?
Watching Netflix, reading books, working out, meditating, philately can all be considered hobbies once again if we go by the traditional definition which has provided contentment to people for ages. However today we, unfortunately, tend to look down upon these options just because they miss out on the so-called productivity factor. Isn’t it so?
Pursuing the hobby as a side- business is great but taking out time to do it for fun, maybe once in a while is equally important. We need to ask ourselves right away if we are content with our lives. If not, probably pursuing our hobbies, in a conventional way might help us find some contentment, who knows? It is time to ponder…
