Hobbies And Interests Are For Everyone And Should Not Become A Luxury!

Hobbies and interests make you a well defined individual. Here is why you should hold on to your hobbies and interests.

There was a time in my college days when I would be hooked to a racy novel even at 3 am in the night. I was never able to keep the book aside even though it used to be way past the sleeping time. Reading books was more than just a hobby.

Coming back to the present day, hobbies and interests are precious activities and my reading cannot be associated with the phrase – ‘just a hobby!’ anymore. Time for hobbies and interests is now defined by work, career, school, PTMs, traffic, the maid (I am serious!) schedules. By the way, these are just the highlights and I am sure the list would be more personalized and lengthier for all of us!

While an interest turning into a hobby is a step forward in engaging yourself more, the reverse is where we tend to give up for lack of time or other personal reasons. That interest would definitely try popping out of the back of your mind time and again, to remind us to explore the unexplored!

Why do we need hobbies and interests?

Unlike most careers, hobbies and interests are the ones that come very close to defining the real ‘you‘.

As hobbies and interests are driven by yourself for yourself, it is the best thing that you could do to make yourself more loved and enriched. So do take out some time to bring out the enjoyable self in you. If you catch yourself feeling bored more frequently, then it means that you have ample time at your disposal to dust those hobbies and interests dormant in your mind for a while.

Improve your personality

I feel that having confidence is like a chicken-egg problem. You develop confidence when you accomplish something, which in turn needs confidence in first place to start implementing! Hobbies and interests would give you the much needed sense of accomplishment, which in turn works out to be a self-confidence booster!

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So if you are looking for tips to develop your personality, adding a hobby could be a great idea.

Hobbies and interests could be business ideas

We know that hobbies and interests are unpaid work routines and that’s the beauty here. When you take money out of the equation, it allows you to think and implement things without boundaries or timelines.

You pursue a hobby just because you take pleasure in a certain activity. It is neither driven by someone else’s vision nor by a rule book with timings. Being your own boss is the ultimate freedom in pursuing hobbies and interests. It is no wonder that many entrepreneurs actually turned their hobbies and interests into full time businesses!

Makes you more creative

Children often think out of the box. They do not hesitate to imagine a rabbit with school bag, animals on a car ride to the zoo or say that a kid’s nose is hiding inside the paper (when actually they forget draw a nose!). Growing up somehow kills the habit of dreaming the impossible when we try to fit into traditional society.

While we cannot completely get out of the rat race, having a hobby could well be the saving grace to keep your treasured self intact. When you have nothing to lose but yourself, the tangible product of a hobby is what makes one more creative. Like I recently read that someone who did not know how to knit, still made a sweater by making a sweater icing on a cake!

Get back on the track!

As women, we tend to multi task and play bigger roles in family and society. With motherhood, I forgot the need to pursue hobbies and interests for a while.

Although parenting wins the battle with my hobbies on most occasions, now I make sure that I pursue my hobbies and interests to the extent possible, rather than abandoning them completely. I feel it also sends a good message to our children about the importance of having ‘me’ time, irrespective of other daily routines to keep oneself happy.

So when we go to a library, the first thing I do is to read a book for my child. Later I do tell him that it is now my turn to read for myself and that he needs to be with his books for that while. I tell him that instead of throwing tantrums, he needs to say bye with a smile when I go for my yoga/zumba workout sessions – much the same way how I say bye when he is leaving for school.

There could be million reasons to give up hobbies and interests. However the only reason why you should restore your hobbies and interests or even start a new hobby is because that makes you unique as a person. Do not let go of that opportunity to explore thyself.

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