I Refuse to Call Them “Just” Hobbies
So-called pastimes could be the key to reinventing the way we define ourselves
It’s the inevitable question at networking events, the bar or club, or at family reunions when meeting with relatives you haven’t seen in years: “So, what do you do?” And, in expected fashion, we are obliged to respond with the title of the job that pays our wages.
I do note, that if you earn a living from something you are fully and truly invested in, you are infinitely blessed. But many of us don’t have that privilege, and so we respond with our day (or night) jobs that, while we may not outright hate, we wish we could exchange for doing something else.
In truth, I rather enjoy my current job, but it certainly isn’t my ultimate calling in life. It serves more as a practical means to an end, as is the case with day jobs for most of us.
One day at the office, a coworker and I were reminiscing about the overwhelming uncertainty that characterized our post-college days while deciding on a career path.
“I almost went for my Ph.D. in history,” I mused to her. “Academia has always been my thing. I still keep in touch with my professors and read up on research when I can. I’d love to study in Istanbul and access the hard copies of manuscripts there.”
And it’s true—right after college, I had a bit of a crisis trying to decide what to do. My history major and experiences in research and working for state government during college opened up so many doors, that it was hard to choose. I ended up working in the legal field, which I truly enjoy. If I had to choose a position in the workforce, it would be this. But my love for the disciplines of history and anthropology has never left me, and I intend to return in some capacity once it’s financially doable for me.
My coworker, who is around forty years my senior, smiled knowingly. “Yes, there are things we all dream of doing, especially when we’re young,” she said, “but at least with this job you can still pay the bills, while the other things can be just hobbies.” I know she meant well, and it was her way of pointing out the silver lining in a career that perhaps wasn’t my first choice.
But for some reason this interaction lingered with me for a while, and after a time the “just hobbies” phrase began grating at me a little. I felt dismissed, as if I was just a young, naive thing, spouting my dreams about sparkles and sunshine into the crushing void that is the big, bad world. How could I make it known that I was serious about what I was saying?
I don’t think anyone doubts that hobbies can be all-consuming and that people can be hardcore fans of an activity. It’s just that I have a slight problem with the connotation that “hobbies” gives in our current society: as if the things I love doing that don’t immediately bring in income are just afterthoughts: activities that may be done with passion but are still secondary or even insignificant in the scheme of things.
Things like history, along with playing saxophone at a local music school aren’t “just” my hobbies. They are the endeavors that make my life worth living, along with my relationships with others. I work not just to put food on the table, but so I can engage in these other things as much as I can, to my heart’s content.
I don’t play saxophone or delve into research papers on 9th-century Islamic philosophy in my “spare time,” exactly— it may be a spare time relative to work, but why does my conception of time have to be organized around work? No — a block of my day is spent at my job, and a smaller block is spent intentionally on other things. Simple as that.
So, I am an office worker and I also am a musician and a student of history in an actual, literal sense. For me, these are not just random pastimes or respites from my day job. Objectively, time may be passing while doing these things, but I’m not doing them to pass the time. I’m doing them because I love them, because that is who I am and I necessarily cannot do anything else.
Lately I’ve made it a point to not immediately talk about my day job when I’m meeting new people. If someone asks what I do, I reply with unadulterated enthusiasm about my role in small jazz ensembles or my time spent volunteering at the immigration courthouse. I know at some point they’ll probably ask about my day job, but first I throw them off when I launch into animated descriptions of my “other endeavors” first thing — it’s quite amusing.
Sure, saying things like “I am a musician” right off the bat gives people the impression that being a musician pays my bills, while that’s not accurate. But that is precisely the bottom line— it’s unfortunate that our minds automatically try to link money with simply doing things. We shouldn’t only be defined by what earns us our wages, but also by the things we do with all our love, energy, and heart. So, in talking about my most authentic experiences first, I’ve subtly asserted to the world what takes primacy in my life.
