Hobbies

My 30s have become about embracing hobbies.

A friend on Twitter was recently doing those “like & I’ll say something nice about you” memes and I was pretty struck by mine:

you are 100% living your best life. your adventures and creative pursuits are so kickass tbh (THEM WATERCOLORS) and I really admire your dedication to doing awesome things with your free time!!

Which has got me thinking about how yeah, I kind of am living my best life? I’ve made hobbies a particularly important part of the last couple years. I feel like for the first time since I started working, I’m placing equal importance on my hobbies as I am work. I think my sabbatical went a long way to help me appreciate the power of not working all the time.

I’ve joked before that it’s good that I have a tech job, because how else am I going to afford my hobbies? Games, art supplies, and instruments/music supplies cost 💰💰💰. But like… it’s true. I know our late-stage capitalist hellscape has made work seem like a way of life, but… maybe work can also be a means to an end, with that end being the time and resources needed to enjoy life? Is this how our parents’ and grandparents’ generations felt? (Well, not my parents, but someone’s parents.)

It just feels like a big internal shift to go from “must. be. working. to. be. productive. human.” to “can’t wait to take a break and practice bass later!” I mean, I still have issues shifting myself away from work — I finally tore myself off my computer around 7:30 pm last night to start making dinner — but while progress is slow, it’s steady. I have band practice tonight, so that’s a solid break where I’ll need to get offline.

Anyway. Hobbies rock. Looking forward to spending more decades to come exploring them 🤘