“Find something you’re passionate about and keep tremendously interested in it.” – Julia Child
Do you have any hobbies?
That could be a loaded question. Imagine if it were posed to you in a job interview. If you answer yes, someone might think you have too much time on your hands, especially if your hobby is seen as frivolous. If you answer no, you might be pegged as a workaholic, or a stick in the mud, or just no fun.
We are at the beginning of a new month again (I love new beginnings!), and, in May, let’s take the time to explore hobbies. Over a series of posts this month, I’ll be posing several questions, such as these:
- What defines a hobby, anyway?
- Why are hobbies thought to be valuable?
- What research has been done on hobbies?
- Does everyone really need a hobby?
- Can some activities and passions be hobbies in disguise?
- Can work be a hobby?
- What are different categories of hobbies?
- How can we find hobbies that are a good fit for us?
- How can we find inexpensive hobbies?
- How can hobbies enhance our intensities?
- How do we know when we should drop a hobby?
- And, as our first question…
What hobbies did you have as a child?
I went through a series of hobbies when I was young: stamp collecting, complete with a starter kit of stamps ready to place in a binder; coin collecting (alas, no starter kit for that one); collecting every newspaper account of the Minnesota Vikings and pasting them all in a scrapbook with notes and captions (this was more successful). Over time, however, I’ve learned that collecting as a hobby isn’t something that gives me much satisfaction.
Some childhood hobbies I think I would have enjoyed more had I had more skills of time management and planning. I’ve always wanted to learn to be more proficient at drawing, but I mistakenly thought that I could doodle once in a while and somehow magically get better. Piano lessons were a similar though slightly more successful experience. When I was young, I hadn’t made the connection between working diligently to learn the basics in order truly to enjoy a certain level of mastery. Sure, I moved through the John Thompson piano grades and played well enough to accompany my high school chorus, but, because I wasn’t giving this hobby my all—I treated it a chore rather than a passion—true enjoyment from it remained elusive. I often “crammed” my practice into the last couple of days before a lesson, so the experiences of both practicing and learning new material were more stressful than relaxing.
I learned to knit and crochet from my mother and grandmother, but I never thought of these activities as hobbies until I became an adult. Why is that, I wonder? My enjoyment of needlework now comes mainly from tweaking patterns, working with the highest quality yarns and crochet threads I can afford (mainly for the feel of them against my fingers), and making gifts for friends and family, such as this pair of socks for my niece (Anna, here is proof that you will eventually get your much, much belated—gulp—Christmas gift).
I remember going through a period as a child when I consciously took up hobbies, then I didn’t think about hobbies for a very long time, perhaps because college and graduate school, marriage and motherhood filled my time. Or did aspects of these activities become hobbies?
In any case, I find myself now thinking of hobbies again, wondering how to enhance the enjoyment of the ones I have, and asking if I want to take up any new hobbies.
What hobbies did you have as a child?
Have any of them continued to be a part of your life?
I collected dolls as a child and still do today. My grand daughters are into American Girl Dolls now and I am enjoying the time we share reading the books and going to New York to the store. As an adult I started collecting quotes. I just have them everywhere and must someday put them all together and in some kind of order. I wrote as a very young child; I think as more of a release than a hobby. Then I wrote as a job (newspapers) hated those deadlines! Now I think my writing is somewhere between hobby, need, passion and obsession.
Collecting quotes is a fascinating hobby!
Your thoughts about writing are similar to some of my questions recently. What makes a hobby a hobby and not something else? The deadlines might be a clue–deadlines imply that someone else is in control. It seems to me that hobbies are something that we control, for the most part, anyway. And then there is the difference between something’s being a need or a choice. Lots to think about… thank you.
[...] a comment on a previous post on childhood hobbies, Doreen wrote that writing, for her, is “somewhere between hobby, need, passion and [...]