How to invest your free time; A starter pack for understanding hobbies.

Hobbies are the activities we usually follow in our leisure time and help us to unwind and relax. Hobbies are often confused with interest or pastime. Though these words are close cousins and belong to the 'activities for pleasure' family, they cannot always be swapped and used interchangeably. The dividing line may be thin and blurred, but there are some distinct attributes of each, lending them a unique flavor.

Hobbies like sketching or coin collecting (numismatics) usually denote those activities that we do in our leisure time because we are very passionate about them. They might also demand our time, money, and effort and we try to excel in our chosen avocations. These activities are done with the purpose of recreation and not for any commercial purpose. The instant we start earning money from it and the financial angle comes in, it ceases to be our hobby.

Fill in the blank, please. Some of us might have nosy neighbors whose favorite------(hobby/pastime) is to peep in our houses and keep a tab of who, when, and why visits our home. Yes, you guessed it correctly, the right option is pastime. Activities that are generally included in pastimes help us to de-stress without making any significant contribution to our talent pool or skill upgradation. We pursue them because they invigorate us and help us to 'let our hair down' for a little while. I can say on the weekends my favorite pastime is to wake up late in the morning and then laze around the entire day in pajamas.

An interesting difference between a hobby and interest is that playing cricket can be my hobby only if I play it frequently and ardently. But it is not mandatory that I have to be a regular golfer to have an interest in the game of golf. I might be a bathroom singer, yet I may have a keen interest in music. So, to have an interest in any activity does not always translate into our active participation in that avocation.

However, the dividing line among hobby, pastime, and interest may not always be incontrovertible and inviolable. We may not be able to classify them in clear buckets all the time. If I am a voracious reader I would spend a substantial amount of money and time on reading books, then it becomes my hobby. But if I like to do crossword puzzles on the weekend and read reviews of the latest movie releases then it becomes my pastime. A lot depends on our level of participation, intent, and context. 

Importance of hobbies

Almost anyone who has walked on this Earth has a hobby. It might be something as common as reading, or as rare as 'noodling' (trying to catch catfish with our bare hands). Hobbies give us a brief respite from the overwhelming pressures of personal and professional lives. They are mentally stimulating and socially engaging. They give us a small window of respite through which a whiff of fresh air drifts in our mundane lives. Busier the person, the greater the need for hobbies.

Indulging in hobbies such as sports, yoga, etc, give us a physiological advantage and keep us mentally fit. They help to keep age-related problems, depression, memory loss, etc, at bay. They can also help to reverse the biological clock. Hobbies such as gardening, listening to music, cooking, etc are therapeutic and give us a sense of accomplishment. Similarly, hobbies like writing or jewelry making help us to stimulate our creative juices. We might have certain talents or innate skills about which we ourselves are ignorant, hobbies help us to rediscover ourselves and let that magical 'Nirvana' dawn upon us. In a nutshell, hobbies help us to improve and be a better version of ourselves. 

Involving ourselves in certain hobbies pushes us out of our comfort zone and enables us to interact with more people. It is a super way of bonding with people we have never met before. Platforms such as 'Meet Up' allow us to meet new people, share our interests and follow group activities. People from many clubs and groups as the biking club, the reading club, the choir group, etc, where dozens of people dedicate themselves to a particular hobby collectively. It is wonderful if we can find one such club, otherwise, we can take initiative and form one.

Things to keep in mind while choosing a hobby

It is not that right from the day we are born we are aware of our choices and predilections. We develop and acquire new hobbies all along or as per the changing circumstances. For instance, If I realize that due to my sedentary lifestyle I am putting on lots of weight, I would like to develop any outdoor hobby like walking or aerobics or dancing which gives me pleasure and helps me to regulate my weight.

Our personality type also determines our choice of hobbies. An introverted person will choose more individual and solo activities, while an extroverted person would like to be a part of a larger group. Even in group activities some people just like to participate, enjoy and retire while the more competitive sort would like to take part in a contest like running a marathon, playing a friendly match, etc.

Sometimes hobbies also help us to overcome lacuna in our personality. Many of us have stage fear or are averse to mixing up with strangers. Joining local speaking clubs as 'Toastmasters' helps us to overcome our fears and phobias to a large extent. If our lifestyle or profession requires us to travel a lot, then a penchant for learning new languages helps us to gel easily with the local populace and the new people we meet.

Another very important factor which helps us in the choice of our hobbies is the amount of time, money and energy we can devote to our hobbies. If I am learning baking and I have lots of time at my disposal I would like to bake my bread, or else I would take a shortcut and buy all flavored bread from a local bakery. Expensive hobbies like playing golf involve considerable investments (in buying the golf set and accessories) and huge recurring expenses. Not everyone can afford this hobby.

Hobbies can also bind us to our roots. If in our childhood we have played certain sports then we may like to find partners and play those sports again. If we desire to eat certain kinds of foods we enjoyed as a child then we would like to procure them even if it involves extra effort. If we have spare time, money and energy we can also grow some exotic fruits and vegetables. We like to develop these hobbies as they connect and help us to revisit our childhood and roots.

Listing hobbies in a resume

I have personally mentored aspirants for B school admission interviews and job interviews for over a decade now. I feel the 'hobbies and interest' section forms an important part of the resume especially for freshers who have negligible or no job experience. During the interview process questions on hobbies act as ice breakers. Right in the beginning, I used to ask questions about hobbies because it would help to begin the interview on an amiable note and give a degree of comfort to both the interviewer and interviewee. The core and the meat of the interview would subsequently follow.

Hobbies indirectly elaborate our extra skills, unique traits and give an intimate peep into our personality. It is a good way to tell our employers that I am a good fit for the job apart from professional abilities criteria. So we have to be careful and strategic in our choice of hobbies that we mention in our resume. They must be in sync and relevant to our job profiles. For example, if I put traveling as my hobby then indirectly I am indicating that I am open to any traveling assignments, domestic or overseas, entailed in my job. It is a good idea to read the job profile in detail and then mention relevant hobbies which increases our chances of selection. 

If the job that we are applying for requires team efforts it makes sense to include hobbies like playing cricket, football, rugby, or any team sport. We can also talk about our interest in organizing picnics, contests, events, community service, etc. If we want to highlight the creative side of our personality, we can include hobbies like cooking, writing, painting, theater, etc. If we mention hobbies like traveling, learning new languages, making new friends---it exhibits the inquisitive side of our personality.

However, not all hobbies can be placed in our resume. We essentially have to be careful about our hobbies complementing our job responsibility equation. If my job involves team activity, it is a bad idea to mention solo traveling as my hobby. Similarly, hobbies like sleeping or watching television are a little difficult to justify in interviews. Hobbies which display any kind of violence, antisocial behavior, or prejudice against any race, religion, gender, or political ideologies can be potentially dangerous.

Can our hobbies enhance our social/happiness quotient?

The best thing about hobbies is that there is no retirement. They help us to cast a wider network of contacts and acquaintances. They stay with us even when we have bid farewell to our active professional lives. If we are very passionate about our hobbies then they can become our source of bread and butter, jam, cheese----everything. During the recent pandemic of Covid-19 when many people lost their jobs, few of them resorted to their hobbies to enable them to earn their livelihood. We hear the story of a software engineer from Hyderabad, who lost his job, and he started supplying biryani to make both ends meet. Very soon he was earning as much as he earned from his job. Even when normalcy returned and people were called back to their workplaces, this young man refused to go back to his monotonous job. Today he is expanding his start-up and feeding an increasing number of people with his mouth-watering biryani. So real life demonstrates that hobbies in certain exceptional circumstances can become our lifeline.

Hobbies help us to deal with so many unpleasant situations in life. If a student is stressed because of low grades, or someone had a breakup, or somebody wants to increase his popularity quotient in parties then being a good dancer, singer, or being a stand-up comedian helps. It is not possible to switch our careers easily, but people develop a new hobby every year to add 'zing' to their lives. A nutritionist came up with an interesting analogy of 'Hobbies as Vitamins'. The more vitamins we add to our lives, the more interesting our lives become.

In today's world when most people are living in nuclear families and excessive intrusion of technology has atrophied family ties, it is a good idea to have a family hobby. It can be to organize a picnic, gardening, or renovate a portion of the house, where each member is given a specific responsibility. The family can decide to have a family shopping day or visit some relative or watch a movie together.

We have stories of various celebrities who have strange and weird hobbies. Tom Hanks, the legendary Hollywood actor, and Academy Award winner likes to collect old vintage typewriters and many such gadgets adorn the shelves of his studio. Johnny Depp, who made the entire world fall in love with the pirate, Jack Sparrow in 'Pirates of the Caribbean' , has a strange fetish for collecting Barbie dolls. It may sound crazy and eccentric to the world, but the 'man' gives a damn about it. Paris Hilton, the famous heiress to the Hilton chain of hotels, loves to go to any of her three ranches or the island that she owns and do frog hunting. She will hunt the frogs, put them in a bucket, and then will let them go. The world is filled with crazy people.

That is what hobbies do----they give us a huge respite from our 'rinse and repeat' lifestyles.