You Don’t Need to Monetize Your Joy
The novelist Molly Conway brilliantly articulates this old advice that is worth repeating: when you are good at something, people will tell you to turn it into your work, but you don’t have to. You probably don’t want to. Doing something for money is not at all what doing for fun. However, in today’s world, when we see someone’s talent, we encourage them to use it to make money. Conway talks about meeting a woman who was making a dress for herself:
“Wow!” I said. “This is great. Do you have an Etsy shop or …?” And suddenly it seemed like all the lights went out from the room. She looked down in despair. “No,” she sighed. “Everyone keeps telling me that I should, but I just don’t know where to start. ”I recognized the gaze of a woman who was unexpectedly amazed at people’s expectations.
Find yourself a job in retail
This is the great myth that started the business: I love baked goods, which is why I started this chain of bakeries. I’m a sneakerhead and I just got VC funding for my shoe collection app. Everyone said I knit the best sweaters and now you can subscribe to Cardigan of the Month. Welcome to my Etsy, read my Kindle single, buy a mug on my Shopify, here’s my Patreon, yes, I take Apple Pay. A business that satisfies passion is fantastic! But, as I wrote earlier , this is not a hobby, but something more. Behind the magazine profiles and a beautiful display case, there is a ton of rough work. You are in retail most of the time.
Hold on to joy
If what you really want is not money, but an opportunity to expand your hobby, you can find many other opportunities that will enhance your joy rather than supplant it. Find a club with other hobbyists to trade jobs, share advice, or compete.
Join a forum, subreddit, Facebook group or Discord chat. Create multiple social media accounts to show off your work and follow your hobbyist friends. Blog about your process, or post a video about video making on the Internet, or a podcast about it – but only if it brings you joy and doesn’t take up time spent on the hobby itself.
If people show interest, teach others to do what you do. If there is no club, create your own. Find people to teach you new tricks or help you complete a big project that you couldn’t do it alone. Maybe they know where to go birdwatching, or they’ve found the perfect wood glue, or they want to practice drawing by illustrating your letters.
You can create custom items or arrange custom shows for friends and family rather than clients. If you are really good at this, use your hobby as a gift. Challenge yourself by completing a project for someone important to you. If you find that you don’t like making commissions for someone else, you can quit much easier than with a financial transaction.
If you want some recognition or want to test your talent, perform in open microphones, enter contests, and find ways to do your business in public that don’t revolve around money. Some of us do really well in competition or a little stress, but capitalism is just one form of that. A $ 20 prize from a county fair could mean a lot more than the $ 200 earned from an Etsy store.
And if you don’t have a very good hobby, who can tell you that your homemade decorations were a terrible Christmas present? If it doesn’t matter to you if you do your hobby well, then you don’t really need honest feedback. Perhaps you just need to find someone who appreciates what you are doing, or who wants to do the same with you.
Accept the compliment
When people see how good you are at something, they inevitably start doing it for the money. They just want to compliment you, express the value of your work, or, in the worst case, strike up a conversation. Accept the compliment. Explain that your hobby is for fun and that you do not want to endanger that pleasure. And bring the conversation back to the topic itself, to what you like about it, what it taught you.
And every time you feel guilty about not turning your hobby into a job, reread the introduction to Conway’s play, ride the wave of emotion, and cherish your unmonetized joy.
The modern trap of turning a hobby into a hustle and bustle | Human Repeller