Hobby or Hinderance?

Author : Will T

Ask a room full of people what hobby they have and you will get
as many answers as there are people. Others will confess that
they don’t have a hobby. They probably do; but just don’t label
it as such. By definition, a hobby is an activity or interest
pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in
primarily for pleasure.

Whether stamp collecting, chat rooms, trains, soft ball,
scrapbooking, golf, reading, painting, tap dancing, yard work,
crafts, auto mechanics, music, hunting down garage sales,
sewing, fishing, cooking, boating, furniture refinishing,
javelin tossing or a plethora of other activities or interests
the key element is balance. You must find balance between your
family life and your extracurricular activities.

Too much of a good thing turns bad. Everyone should have an
outlet and a special interest that they enjoy doing for
themselves. Self indulgence, to a point, is quite healthy.
Escaping from day to day grinds to take some time to devote to
your special hobby or concentration is therapeutic. You’ve all
heard, “if Mamma ain’t happy, no one’s happy.” It doesn’t matter
if your role is father, mother, husband, wife, boyfriend,
girlfriend, son, daughter, brother or sister, if you’re just
going to work or school and have no real outside activities,
you’re probably not always the most friendly person to be
around.

Conversely, if you bury yourself and it seems to others that all
you care about or all you ever want to do is bang on the drums
all day, you’re setting yourself up or prolonging discontent.
People deal with depression in many ways. Some sleep all the
time. Others want to do nothing but read, read, read. Still
others will spend hours upon hours downstairs building a bigger,
faster widget, just to avoid the real cause of their
frustrations. Hobbies are supposed to be a healthy outlet, not a
catalyst to ignore issues that need addressing.

Likewise, hobbies can get very expensive. Sure snow mobiles,
motorcycles and ski equipment are obviously expensive. But
sometimes those seemingly low cost activities can add up. You
start out with trying to budget for the monthly karate lessons.
Then you need (or want) the gi, the uniform. Don’t forget about
the protective sparring equipment. Perhaps you think you need to
have a heavy bag or some shields to help you practice. Figure on
$30-$50 per tournament that you enter. Of course there’s the
uninsured medical and orthodontia costs to be calculated in as
well. “Let’s see, do we pay the mortgage this month, so get that
new helmet that you just have to have?”

If your hobby is doing more harm than good, if it’s dipping into
the family budget and time allocation, more than you can or
should be spending, it’s time to reevaluate. If you’re not doing
something outside your standard occupation that you enjoy, it’s
time to find something, for your and your family’s sake!

Category : Spirituality