I was sitting on my kitchen floor last Tuesday, surrounded by what looked like the aftermath of a small explosion in a craft store. There was blue yarn everywhere—tangled in the chair legs, snagged on my watch, and somehow, inexplicably, looped around the cat’s tail. I was trying to knit a scarf. It was supposed to be a simple rectangular shape, but for some reason, it was becoming a triangle. A very holey, very lopsided triangle.
Ten years ago, I would have been frustrated. I would have looked at that mess and thought about how much time I’d wasted. I might have even wondered if I could get good enough to sell these on an online shop one day, and since I clearly couldn’t, what was the point? But this time, I just laughed. I realized I didn’t care. And that realization felt like a heavy weight finally sliding off my shoulders.
We live in this strange, frantic era where every minute of our lives feels like it needs to be optimized. If you’re not working, you’re “recovering” so you can work better. If you have a hobby, you’re told to “monetize your passion.” We’ve turned our leisure time into a second job, and frankly, I think it’s making us all a little bit miserable.
The Curse of the Modern Side Hustle
I remember when a hobby was just something you did because you liked it. My dad used to spend hours in the garage building birdhouses that no bird in their right mind would ever live in. They were crooked. They weren’t “marketable.” He didn’t have an Instagram account to show them off. He just liked the smell of sawdust and the quiet of the garage after a long day at the office.
Today, that feels like a radical act. Now, if you start baking bread, people ask when you’re opening a bakery. If you enjoy taking photos on your weekend hikes, someone tells you that you should start a wedding photography business. There is this constant, nagging pressure to turn our joy into currency. It’s as if doing something “just because” isn’t enough anymore.
This “hustle culture” has a sneaky way of sucking the soul out of everything. Once you start thinking about how much you can sell a sweater for, you stop enjoying the feel of the wool. You start worrying about “efficiency” and “profit margins.” You’re no longer relaxing; you’re managing a micro-enterprise. And let’s be honest, most of us already have enough to manage.
I’ve felt it myself. A few years back, I started gardening. Within three months, I was researching the best heirloom seeds to maximize my yield so I could potentially sell extra produce at the local market. I wasn’t looking at the flowers; I was looking at a spreadsheet in my head. I’d turned my backyard sanctuary into a high-stress production line. It took a particularly bad aphid infestation for me to realize that I’d sucked all the fun out of it. Now, I grow things that I like to look at, and if the bugs eat half of them, well, I guess the bugs had a good lunch.
Rediscovering the Joy of Being a Beginner
There is something incredibly liberating about being bad at something. When you’re a beginner—and you have no intention of becoming a professional—the stakes are zero. You can’t “fail” at a hobby because the only goal is the doing of it.
When we’re children, we do this naturally. We draw purple trees and sky-blue grass and we don’t care if the proportions are wrong. We’re just moving the crayon across the paper because it feels good. But as adults, we get self-conscious. We compare our “Day 1” to someone else’s “Year 10” that we saw on a curated feed somewhere. We get embarrassed by our messy sketches or our off-key singing.
The Freedom of Low Stakes
I’ve started embracing the “low stakes” life. I’ve taken up watercolor painting lately. I am, by all objective measures, terrible at it. My trees look like green clouds on sticks, and my water always looks like a mud puddle. But you know what? Those twenty minutes I spend blending colors are the quietest my brain is all day. I’m not thinking about my inbox or the bills or the news. I’m just thinking about the way the water moves the pigment across the page.
When you allow yourself to be a beginner, you open up a part of your brain that usually stays shut. You start to notice details again. You learn how things work. You realize that the process of making something is often much more rewarding than the finished product itself. It’s about the scratch of the pencil, the squish of the clay, or the rhythm of your feet on the pavement.
- It lowers your cortisol levels because there’s no “deadline.”
- It builds new neural pathways (or so I’ve heard, I’m no scientist, but it feels true).
- It gives you something to talk about that isn’t work.
- It reminds you that you are a human being, not a productivity machine.
The Physical World vs. The Digital Void
I think part of why we’re all so burnt out is that so much of our lives happens in the “void.” We move pixels around a screen, we send emails into the ether, we tap glass. It’s all very abstract. There’s no weight to it. There’s no tactile feedback.
That’s why I think analog hobbies are making such a huge comeback. People are buying vinyl records, shooting film photography, and making pottery. We are desperate to touch something real. We want to feel the resistance of a needle on a record or the grit of soil under our fingernails. It grounds us in a way that a digital “win” never can.
I have a friend who started woodworking. He spends all day as a software developer, staring at code. On the weekends, he goes into his shed and makes spoons. Just spoons. He told me that the first time he finished a spoon, he held it for twenty minutes. He was amazed that he’d made something he could actually hold in his hand. It wasn’t about the spoon being perfect—it was about the spoon being *physical*.
There is a specific kind of peace that comes from working with your hands. It forces you to slow down. You can’t “double-speed” a piece of wood as it dries. You can’t “skip to the end” of a sourdough rise. You have to wait. You have to be present. In a world that is constantly trying to move faster, choosing to do something slow is an act of rebellion.
How to Choose a Hobby (Hint: Don’t Think About Money)
If you’re looking to start something new, my best advice is to think back to what you loved when you were ten years old. Before you cared about resumes or “personal branding.” Did you like collecting rocks? Did you like making friendship bracelets? Did you like digging holes in the backyard just to see what was down there?
Don’t choose a hobby because it looks cool on social media. Don’t choose a hobby because it “complements your career skills.” Choose something that feels like play. If it feels like a chore, you’re doing it wrong. It should be the thing you look forward to at the end of a long day, not another item on your to-do list.
And for heaven’s sake, don’t buy all the most expensive equipment right away. I see so many people get excited about a new interest, spend $500 on top-tier gear, and then feel so much pressure to “perform” that they never actually use it. Start small. Use the cheap brushes. Buy the basic yarn. Give yourself permission to be a hobbyist, not an expert.
Another thing: it’s okay to quit. We have this weird obsession with “finishing what we start.” But if you realize you actually hate playing the ukulele after three weeks, put it down. Sell it or give it to a neighbor. Your time is too precious to spend it on “fun” things that aren’t actually fun for you. The goal isn’t the finished song; the goal was the three weeks of curiosity you followed. That has value in itself.
The Long Road to Nowhere
Sometimes I think about the concept of “doing nothing.” We’re terrified of it. We feel like if we aren’t moving toward a goal, we’re stagnant. But some of the best moments of my life have happened on the “long road to nowhere.”
I remember a hike I took last autumn. I didn’t have a destination in mind. I didn’t track my steps or my heart rate. I just walked. I ended up sitting by a stream for an hour, watching the way the water curled around a specific mossy rock. If you asked me what I “achieved” that day, I’d have to say “nothing.” But I came home feeling more like myself than I had in months.
We need more of that. More aimless wandering. More “useless” skills. More messy, lopsided, holey triangles. Because at the end of the day, we aren’t defined by our output. We aren’t the sum of our paychecks or our achievements. We are the people who live in the quiet moments between those things.
A Few Parting Thoughts
I think we’re all just tired. Tired of performing, tired of competing, tired of being “on.” If you can find one thing in your life that is just for you—something that you’re allowed to be bad at, something that doesn’t make a dime, something that makes the world feel a little bit smaller and quieter—hold onto it. Protect it from the “optimization” monsters. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s a waste of time.
If it brings you a spark of genuine interest, it’s the most productive thing you could possibly do. Even if it’s just a lopsided scarf. Especially if it’s a lopsided scarf.
Next time you find yourself thinking about how to turn your hobby into a business, take a deep breath. Remind yourself that you are allowed to just exist. You are allowed to play. You are allowed to be “terrible” at something you love. And honestly? That might be the most “productive” realization you’ll ever have.
Anyway, I should probably go and see if I can untangle the cat from that blue yarn. I think I’m going to try and turn that triangle into… well, maybe a very weird hat. We’ll see what happens. No pressure.