Not Every Hobby Should Turn Into a Hustle and Bustle.
I love the side hustle and bustle. My hobbies – blogging, podcasting, making comedy videos, even twitter – have become my job. I have even contributed to a book called The Hustle-Free Economy: Transforming Creativity into Careers . So trust me when I tell you: your hobby can also be completely useless.
For some hobbies, this is obvious. My father has raced radio controlled cars over the years, participated in charity bike tours and built a sailboat. He never had to pretend it was nothing more than a fun and fulfilling way to pass the time. He never had to turn them into vanity.
But other hobbies may seem like they should lead to something. If you cook well and cook enough, you will eventually be asked to do it for money. If you are creating any craft, someone will nudge you to sell it on Etsy. If you write anything slightly funny or touching, you will be told to write a book.
And maybe you will, and maybe you will like it, and maybe you will make a living doing what you love. But if you do that, you will definitely realize that the real job in your career is not the most interesting thing. Otherwise, every good chef would have a restaurant, and everyone who has fun at parties would have a half-hour special on Comedy Central.
When you turn your hobby into a hustle and bustle, your whole worldview changes. All existing rates have been raised, and another big new rate is money. Every project should prioritize profit, which necessarily means lowering the priority of everything else, albeit insignificant. There are more serious implications for your obligations, customers to be satisfied, rules to follow, taxes to pay. You have to keep an eye on what is happening, manage your email, keep in touch with customers. You may need to chat, advertise, travel.
Before you tried to make money, your hobby could be rewarding even if you didn’t achieve your goals. So, no matter how good you are, if you end up losing money, you have “failed.” And the harder you rush, the more noticeable your failure will be.
Sometimes it’s worth it. Sometimes it can even make you rich. He can save you from a dead-end career or a meaningless life. And I fully support that.
Just don’t let anyone convince you that this is the best choice. People who make money from their hobby are no better than you. You can even indulge in a hobby that is traditionally done for money — if you don’t undermine someone’s way of earning a living, you’re not doing any harm.
About a year ago redditor apparently_sane realized that their scriptwriting fuss was actually killing them :
I worked 6 days a week and wrote in the mornings and evenings, I was killing myself and my social life for this lucrative dream. Somewhere there I realized that I just couldn’t hack it as a professional writer. Once I tried to write Nikolai’s deadline and literally got drunk to death.
So they gave up. Not in a letter, but in a crush.
I dropped the towel, but not for my ambition, but because of my schedule. I thought, “Damn it, I need to live,” and I did so. I worked and lived, traveled and wrote when I felt like it. Sometimes I would open the final draft and fiddle with the title pages for an hour and then do something else … I don’t have to write for anyone or anything, damn it, I write whatever I want. O.
Of course, ironically, if you focus on the quality of the activity and work, you will probably start to create something that seems even more in demand. But this is not a “gimmick” to actually advance your career. This is a legal permission to give up the “hustle and bustle” of your side hustle and bustle and just have fun. And when focusing on the hobby itself helps you do it better, it’s not good because it costs money – it’s good because it’s good.