In Defense of Wasted Time #3: Three MORE Reasons Why You Need a Hobby

Welcome back! This is Part III of my three-parter on hobbies. If you missed the first part, start here. Or you can read the first three reasons why we need hobbies. What follows below are three final ways that grownups benefit from hobbies. Again, I’ve drawn on interviews with over a dozen friends and family members, so you can hear from a wider range of voices than just mine.

4.  Hobbies as balance

It’s been interesting to notice how many people choose hobbies that are the opposite of how they make their living. Those whose jobs are mostly on computers enjoy hobbies where they get to use their hands to work with physical materials. People with mentally draining jobs enjoy physically strenuous hobbies. Those who work alone play team sports, and those who talk on phones all day sit and paint in silence. I’m no exception: I make my living sitting in a chair in constant verbal contact with others, but I recreate by dancing in physical contact with a partner. Our hobbies provide us with balance, keeping the capacities our jobs don’t utilize from atrophying.

Often, though, the balance a hobby provides is simply in its contrast to all the things we must do, or how the worth of much of our activity is measured by the amount of money it brings in.

“I’ve learned, as a mom, a spouse, and a social worker, that it’s incredibly easy to lose myself in doing things for others. There have been years of putting others first and losing myself in that. Singing with the choir has brought me a lot of joy. I’m doing something that isn’t in any way, shape, or form related to the other roles or hats I wear on a regular basis. It’s just for me. It’s connection and community where people just know me for me—not who I am for others.” – Lindsay-with-an-A, 40s, hobby: choir

“As a homeschooling, stay-at-home wife and mom, I focus on others a lot. But since I’ve been able to slow down some, I’ve noticed that I’m more patient with my kids. I’m focusing on myself for a small window of time, when the rest of the day is focused on others.” – Katie, 30s, hobby: reading

“It’s what you do for the feeding of your soul, that does not earn your keep.” – Jeanne, 20s, hobbies: painting, Irish dance

“When the pride of the new job wore off, hobbies picked up, and gave me pride, a sense of worth, and creative freedom. It gave me a place to invest what time and thoughts I wasn't selling for a paycheck.” – Andy, 30s, hobbies: photography, video games

“It reminds me that I still have a purpose and joy outside of capitalism.” – Kate, 40s, hobby: weightlifting

“Hobbies remind me I am more than what I produce. So much of adult life is about responsibility and production. I have to work to earn money. I have to parent to raise good kids. I have to be productive on days off. None of this is bad. But hobbies remind me I am more than simply what I produce.” – Mark, 30s, hobbies: board games, video games, basketball

And let’s not forget, hobbies provide us with one tremendously important thing that’s scarce in most grownup lives:

            “Grappling is just FUN.” – Mizu, 20s, hobby: jiu-jitsu

“It’s a return to the fun and adrenaline of competition.” – Paul, 60s, hobbies: softball, paddle-boarding

“It’s enriching. It’s challenging. It’s creative. But most importantly—it’s fun.” – Lindsay-with-an-A, 40s, hobby: choir

“It’s a reminder that sometimes we can just have fun.” – Mark, 30s, hobbies: board games, video games, basketball

5.  Hobbies as social connection

In an increasingly lonely world, hobbies are one of our last remaining relational spaces. I have so many clients who want to make more friends, but don’t know how to do it or where to look. The reality is, making friends requires encountering one another regularly, over an extended period of time, in some shared space. For most of us, school was that space for the first couple decades of our lives. Then that space was supposed to be work—but now, so many of us work remotely or independently that we’ve lost that space. What’s left? The gym. Church, if that’s your thing. But—particularly since COVID—not much else.

Hobbies, however, are a vast playground of social opportunities, able to bring you into contact with both like-minded people with whom you have much in common and people with whom you would otherwise never interact.

“Community is the biggest ongoing benefit. The experience of training alongside other people, challenging each other, celebrating each other’s victories (big and small) builds such a unique bond. I love my teammates and my coaches. I get to see them multiple days a week. They have been there for me through many struggles!” – Mizu, 20s, hobby: jiu-jitsu

“I love the camaraderie of teammates and an opportunity to experience teamwork again.” – Paul, 60s, hobbies: softball, paddle-boarding

“Music has brought me a whole group of people I’d never have met otherwise, and we get to share the excitement and energy of playing music live together.” – Joel, 20s, hobby: piano

“Hobbies were contagious. A friend would be excited about something, so I’d try it. Some of my favorite memories are the hours spent with other women, learning from them. As a young mom, enjoying a hobby in community…yeah, I guess it was the community as much as the hobby itself that was the outlet.” – Kerry, 60s, hobbies: quilting, scrapbooking, skiing, canoeing

“Playing video games has helped me to build connections and get to know people better. As an introvert who married into a big family, video games are mainly how I got to know some of my in-laws.” – Melanie, 30s, hobbies: painting, embroidery, video games, reading

“In my twenties, I was sick so often, just about every other week. Video games became my hobby, and truly a lifeline, connecting me to some sort of social normalcy. I once again had friends, and activities to do with them.” – Andy, 30s, hobbies: photography, video games

“I’ve accumulated thousands of hours over decades of playing games with some people, and most of that time wouldn’t exist if not for the shared hobby of games. We’ve had deep conversations, belly-rattling laughter, shared experiences and memories, all because of a hobby. I get so much joy from spending time with the same group of guys twice a week on the court, competing and laughing and talking about life, sports, our kids, or sometimes nothing but arguing about an out-of-bounds call. Without hobbies that continued into adulthood for me, my life would no doubt be far more lonely and less relationally rich.” – Mark, 30s, hobbies: board games, video games, basketball

If you’re lonely, go find a hobby. Seriously. It is my number one piece of advice to anyone hoping to make more friends. You have to go somewhere, do something, take risks, try something new, be out in the world, be active. After all, it’s shared experience that brings us into contact with each other, and then it’s passion that draws the right people in. Friendships won’t happen if you sit at home thinking about them. Pursue a hobby, and chances are, you will make friends along the way.

6.  Hobbies as play that heals

Because I’m a therapist, I have to end with this one. In the attachment-based parts work I do, I often talk about inner child parts, or exiled parts, who are stuck in earlier stages of our lives, carrying the pain we experienced or the wounds we received then. Much of trauma work is an act of going back to these lost little parts, to witness them, to unburden them, to love on them a little, and essentially, to get them unstuck and reintegrated into the rest of the psyche’s internal system. And sometimes, I’ve found, what some of these parts need to heal is a chance to play.

If childhood trauma or hardship forced you to grow up too fast, if you didn’t get enough safety, security, or space to play, if you missed out on the developmental experiences that your brain needed, parts of you will stay stuck until those needs get met. Therapy for children with histories of severe neglect often involves cuddling 8-year-olds like they’re little babies and singing them nursery rhymes; it’s a healing act of going back in time to meet the needs that were missed. Engaging with hobbies as a form of play can offer a similar type of healing to all of us.

“My hobbies brought play back into my life, long after I didn’t have kids to play with. The bat, the ball, and the glove touched an old place inside of me, and also awakened a new place. I was 56 and no longer a kid. It was a return to fun.” – Paul, 60s, hobbies: softball, paddle-boarding

“Hobbies mean I’m still a kid and I still love learning.” – Kate, 40s, hobby: weightlifting

“Hobbies help me remember being a kid, and help me engage with my kids. Sharing my hobbies with my kids, finding their hobbies, and then engaging with them over those, has been one of the greatest joys of my life. I absolutely love seeing my kids’ eyes light up while we play a video game together, or when we beat a boss and celebrate with high fives, or we talk about our favorite books, or my son asks me if the characters in his stories are the same as the ones in my comic books. Hobbies give me a way to engage with my kids as their playmate. We can play together in ways that fill both of us up. It’s a rediscovery for me of the joy of childhood.” – Mark, 30s, hobbies: board games, video games, basketball

My family went through a crisis when I was 9 years old. Looking back years later, I’ve realized that age 9 was when I stopped playing. After 9, I no longer played with toys; I no longer played make-believe; I no longer played dress-up. I still read books and made up stories, and I devoted myself to playing with my younger siblings, but I stopped viewing myself as a kid. From that moment on, I believed it was my responsibility to take care of everybody else; I actually remember telling myself that I had to be a grownup now, because my parents needed me. I genuinely thought the only difference between me and the real grownups was that I didn’t have a driver’s license. But it wasn’t just the loss of play: I stopped letting my mom touch me—no more hugs or cuddles; I started dealing with all of my complicated feelings on my own; I only let my teddy bear witness my tears. When I stopped playing, I cut myself off from so much of what I needed.

Today, my neighbors have a 9-year-old daughter. When the weather is warm, I watch her sometimes, running around our big shared driveway with her little sister and my daughter. They pretend to be monsters and chase each other. They have races, and make up complicated rules and then argue about them. They color with chalk, and have water fights in the summer, and trade snacks, and throw balls back and forth, and pretend to be explorers, and climb trees. They play. That 9-year-old girl is so little. She’s just a kid. And sometimes, I look at her, and I feel an ache in my chest for the years of play I missed out on. My 9-year-old self is still inside me, peeking out, watching these kids, and thinking, I want to join in. Am I allowed to? Do I still get to play? Is it too late?

My hobbies have been a way of saying yes to this young part of me, a tender, maternal, take-you-by-the-hand-and-bring-you-out-into-the-sunshine gesture of love. When I was 9, I wanted to dance. But I thought I was too tall, too awkward, and not pretty enough, so I turned down the opportunity to take ballet. But now when I dance, when I stab my way across the floor in a dramatic tango with a partner against my thigh, or sway my hips and hit those 2s and 4s with a little sass in a west coast swing, I am gifting that joy to my 9-year-old self. Here you go, kiddo. It’s not too late. Look who we became. Aren’t you proud? My hobby is helping her heal.

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If you made to the end of this three-parter, thank you! I hope it inspires you to go try new things and have more fun. And thank you so much to everyone who took the time to share their thoughts on hobbies with me: Andy, Jeanne, Joel, Kate, Katie, Kerry, Lindsay-with-an-A, Lindsey-with-an-E, Mark, Melanie, Mizu, Paul, Tabitha, and Therese.