In Defense of Wasted Time #1: Hobbies for Grownups

(The following anecdote is shared with permission.)

In a recent session, a client pulled out their phone to show me a video of their vocal recital from December. While therapy is unique in that I get to learn about someone’s life in a fairly comprehensive and personal way, most of that encounter is filtered through the formal structure of a session. While I hear about the things that happen in my clients’ lives, I don’t often get to see them. As I watched the video, though, I felt a burst of delight at this three-minute glimpse into my client’s passion and hard work.*

*NOTE: If you’ve ever wondered, the answer is yes! your therapist does want to see a picture of your partner or parents, a video of your child or dog, or a clip of your garage band or rec league volleyball game with your friends. These characters play such an important role in the work we do, and it’s really fun to get actual faces to pin to the names we discuss week after week.

The next thing I felt was an urge to pull out my phone to show off my own video of a December recital, where I’d performed a waltz. For the sake of maintaining focus in the session, I refrained, but in that moment, we connected—two adults, proud as punch and maybe a tiny bit bashful about it. That our accomplishments were recreational rather than career-related was irrelevant. Our hobbies mattered to us. They mattered deeply.

The subject of hobbies has been coming up often in sessions lately—the benefits of hobbies, the empty feeling of not having a hobby, the challenges of maintaining a hobby. This has forced me to slow down and think about my relationship with my own hobbies (currently: reading, writing, and ballroom dancing). What is a hobby? Why does it matter? What does it mean to have a hobby as an adult, a professional, a parent? What do my hobbies add to my life? What have they allowed me to learn or experience? Why do I care about them so damn much?

I felt the first wispy roots of this blog series forming in my brain, but I wanted more input. So I started interviewing friends and family members, posing the questions I listed above. I received answers from over a dozen people—evidence that people love to talk about their hobbies—and those responses form the backbone of this series. Below and in the posts that follow (Part II and Part III), you’ll hear from some diverse voices, including a wide range of stages of life and gendered experiences.

But first, let’s make sure we know what we’re talking about. What is a hobby?

“A hobby is something I do that fosters joy. That doesn’t mean I’m not challenged in doing it. It’s an intentional thing I do that takes time.” – Lindsay-with-an-A, 40s, hobby: choir

“Hobbies for me were not lifelong pursuits, but outlets for expression, exploration, and creativity that fit my current context.” – Kerry, 60s, hobbies: quilting, scrapbooking, skiing, canoeing

“A hobby is something that I can do that gains me absolutely nothing, but at the same time mean so much.” – Joel, 20s, hobby: piano

I’d define a hobby as an enjoyable pastime in which someone engages purely by choice. In discussing hobbies with so many people, I’ve noticed some common themes: hobbies generally involve some sort of skill or challenge; they are often structured, and require learning and focus; they take persistence; they can be solo or social activities, physical or mental in nature, but they require time, sacrifice, and dedication.

By this definition, watching TV is not a hobby. Neither is TikTok. Or Instagram. This kind of screentime—passive use of technology, done-for-you entertainment that it requires no effort to consume—is actually the exact opposite of a hobby. Hobbies can involve screentime, but at bare minimum, they must also involve effort.

“There is a difference between spending an hour playing a video game with someone and scrolling on my phone for an hour. At the end of both of those things, the ‘result’ is the same externally—I didn’t get anything done—but with a game, the reward is much higher.” – Mark, 30s, hobbies: board games, video games, basketball

“Recently, a colleague referenced the decreasing number of hobbies people have, especially the younger generation. All our modern conveniences would seem to lend themselves to more time, not less—but the opposite is true. Media consumption is stealing time and creativity. It’s replacing hobbies.” – Kerry, 60s, hobbies: quilting, scrapbooking, skiing, canoeing

What about going to the gym? Is that a hobby? I think it depends. Certainly, going to the gym requires more effort than watching TV. But is going to the gym a chore, something you feel you ought to do, or even a way of punishing yourself for how you look or what you ate? Or is it a source of enjoyment, self-expression, personal challenge and growth, possibly even community?

Finally, I find it interesting that, almost universally, people say being paid for the activities they pursue as hobbies quickly robs them of delight. Inherent in the definition of a hobby, it seems, is that its reward cannot be financial; if a hobby is the opposite of a job, and jobs are paid labor, then hobbies must be a labor of love.

“Though, like many other hobbies, the market won’t support a fair wage for hours worked, I have at times attempted to make it a source of secondary income. But I found that took some of the joy out of it, as it introduced a lot of pressure for me.” – Tabitha, 30s, hobby: crochet

Is having hobbies a privilege?

For all the reasons you’ll read in the next two posts, I often recommend to my clients that they try to find a hobby. I frequently hear protests: I’m too busy. I don’t have the energy. I have too many responsibilities. I’ve failed at hobbies before. Everything I’d want to do costs too much money. Maybe when the kids are older. Maybe when I’m retired.

Is having hobbies a sign of privilege? Are hobbies available to everyone? These are good questions. Certainly, there are some hobbies that only those with privilege can access: my hobby is ballroom dancing, and I know from looking at the packages offered by some ballroom studios that the money it takes to train for and attend competitions doesn’t fit in the average budget. Money isn’t the only obstacle to hobbies, though. Someone who works 60+ hours a week is unlikely to have the time or energy to enjoy a hobby; a single parent with little support is unlikely to be able to leave the house or have uninterrupted time to devote to a hobby.

“You can learn to do pretty much anything you want! But you’d better find an inexpensive hobby, or else be rich.” – Kate, 40s, hobby: weightlifting

So yes, in some ways, hobbies—or certain kinds of hobbies—can reflect privilege. But at the same time, I think the idea that hobbies are only available to those with privilege robs far too many of us from enjoying what should be just a natural part of an ordinary person’s life. If you don’t have room in your life for a hobby, that’s probably a sign that your lifestyle is not supporting your full wellness. That's not something to feel guilty about; the reality is, we can’t always immediately change our life circumstances. But it’s worth recognizing that hobbies are a sign of health, and something to strive for.

I have a dentist appointment coming up. In terms of how much time I spend on my teeth (and how much interest the insurance company has in coverage for them), one could assume that my teeth aren’t the most vital part of my life. But they say that dental health reflects your overall health; looking in someone’s mouth gives you an uncanny amount of information about how well they care for themselves, their level of access to resources, even the amount of trauma they experienced in childhood. So maybe we can think of evaluating our hobbies as taking a trip to the dentist: No, hobbies aren’t usually at the top of the list when we start naming the things that mean we’re doing well in life, but—just like dental issues can be a sign of larger problems—a lack of hobbying means something is off.

Hobbies are a reflection in miniature of the larger picture of your life.

If your physical health is poor, symptoms, pain, or lack of energy will keep you from engaging in hobbies—so if you’re spending time on your hobbies, you’re probably at least moderately healthy. If you’re depressed, struggling with anxiety, in a stressful marriage, burned out at work, or buried under trauma, your hobbies are going to fall through the cracks—so if you’re enjoying your hobbies, your mental health is probably fair to middling. If you are spending all your time at work, or struggling to make ends meet, hobbies will be one of the first things you cut—so if you’re able to prioritize hobbies, you’re probably doing decently well in terms of work-life balance and financial stability.

Again, the dental analogy works well here. If you are busy, in crisis, having to make hard choices about where to spend money, or otherwise under strain, dental check-ups are usually one of the first things to get pushed aside or completely neglected. In the short-term, this isn’t usually a big deal. If it goes on for years, though, the consequences can be painful, costly, difficult to recover from, and can significantly reduce your quality of life.

So take a moment to consider: How do you feel about your hobbies? Are you enjoying them? Bored with them? Too obsessed with them? If so, why? Do you wish you had more time to spend on them? Are you itching for a new hobby? Has it been years since you’ve really invested in a hobby? Do you feel like hobbies aren’t—or shouldn’t be—important to you right now? Where is that coming from? Do you feel guilty about the time or money you spend on your hobbies? Why?

Write down some of your answers if you can. This brief psychological inventory of your hobby life holds a lot of valuable information about your life as a whole right now. If possible, try to set aside any shame or guilt you’re feeling. Your life is the way it is for valid reasons, not because you’re bad, lazy, stupid, or damaged. But you are the boss of your own life. If you don’t like it, make a change. None of us have as much control of our lives as we’d like—but most of us have a bit more control than we realize.

So what if you don’t have a hobby. How do you get one?

If you’re not used to making room in your life for a hobby, it can feel daunting to figure it out from square one. Picking a hobby seems like it should be the easy part, but often, people get stumped. If you’re trying to find a hobby, it will be tempting to start with the practical issues—things like how much money you have to spend on a hobby, whether you can leave the house or whether you need a hobby you can do at home, any physical limitations you might have, etc. But I find that when people start here, all they see are obstacles, and they are more likely to get stuck.

Instead, I’d suggest starting with delight: What brings you delight? If you don’t know the answer to that question, consider, what delighted you as a child or an adolescent? What do you find delightful to watch others do? What sorts of skills do you daydream about having, or what kinds of activities just seem delightful, like you’d love doing it if you ever had the chance? If you didn’t have to work, what would you want to do with that time instead? What would you love to be really good at? Don’t let the limitations intrude just yet. Follow your heart. If you really want it bad enough, you can find a way to make a whole lot more happen than you’d expect. We tend to find ways to make things work once we decide they’re important.

Then, once you’ve picked a thing, take the first step. Don’t overcommit right out of the gate. You don’t know if you’re going to like it yet, so just dip your toe in. If you don’t like it, no harm done. Scratch it off the list and try something else. BUT, you have to actually try it! Yes, as in, actually start. So don’t just look up yoga studios on Google; add a class to your calendar, and then go. Don’t just decide you want to learn how to play the guitar; send an email to the instructor you found online, and schedule a lesson. Don’t just research woodworking; buy some wood and get out your tools. Don’t just order the art supplies; squirt some paint on a palette and get messy.

It’s not a bad thing to have a string of failed hobbies. On the contrary, it means you’re not stagnating. I have a pair of rollerblades rotting in my garage (probably home to a family of spiders by now), a keyboard gathering dust in my basement, and a half a dozen unfinished novels slumbering in my hard drive. My dance shoes lived in the back of my closet for literally thirteen years, packed and unpacked in move after move, before I finally put them on again. So let it flow. Let your hobby be what it wants to be. The right hobby for this season will find you if you stay open, stay loose, and stay in motion. The whole point is that you don’t have to do any of it, because nothing vital depends on a hobby—so Marie-Kondo that shit, and let it go if it stops bringing you joy. Because when it comes to cultivating healthy hobbies, that nothing-vital-depends-on-it part is vital!

If I haven’t convinced you yet, if you’re still on the fence about if it’s really worth it to create space for a hobby in your life, stay tuned. In the next two posts (Part II and Part III), I’m going to use what I gathered from my interviews to elaborate on six reasons why hobbies are universally good for grownups.