Life’s Not All About Work! You Need a Hobby in 2017!
Why Find a Hobby This Year?
Well, in case you haven’t noticed, life is stressful. The effort required to juggle a family life, career, and the extracurricular activities that come along with both can, to put it mildly, be exhausting. Forget stopping to smell the roses – most people don’t make time to look as they trample them just to get through each day. Believe me when I say I am not criticizing people for living “all work, no play” lives. Most of us, without intentionally doing so, have, to some degree, managed to put ourselves in that position. Any married couple with children over 5 years old or single professional with career ambitions knows how easy it is to fall into the trap of “being involved,” and it’s not a bad thing to want to get your children involved in sports, dance, or music, or to donate some of your time volunteering in your community, but the involvement often grows to the point of becoming another exhausting life. We have become a society that makes time for everyone but ourselves, and it’s hurting our quality of life. That’s no good. We’ve got to do something to break the cycle, and I’m going to show you how.
How Do You Choose a Hobby?
Choosing a hobby can be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be, and it’s okay to have more than one. According to the website www.positivelypresent.com, you should choose a hobby that promotes “eustress,” which is a positive kind of stress you experience when you’re doing something for no other reason than doing it brings you joy. This is going to be something different for everyone, but with the endless number of possibilities from which to choose, there’s a hobby out there for everyone.
Take me for example. Even though I write for a living, writing provides me with a great deal of joy, so I write stories in my spare time. I also love to read, and at any given time I’ve got 3 or 4 books that I pull off the shelf and get comfortable with when the mood hits me, but the thing that surprised me the most – the thing that I find the most physically and mentally relaxing is adult coloring books. Go to any Big Box store, browse the book and magazine section and get you a couple of coloring books, then hit the school supply aisle and get you a box of colored pencils and you’re in business. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent coloring and felt the tension of a stressful day just melt away. I’m currently working on some homemade story books for my daughter and 4 nieces, and I use the pictures from the coloring books to provide the illustrations. My daughter and I also enjoy doing art and writing projects when it’s just the 2 of us at home. We have “momma’s book” that is a continuous work-in-progress and includes pictures from the adult coloring books which she colored. My wife scrapbooks in her spare time. My mom gardens. My 83-year-old grandmother volunteers at the hospital in my hometown. It doesn’t matter what you do as long as it brings you joy.