I recently realized that apparently we're no longer allowed to be casually good at anything.
If you bake a beautiful cake, someone asks if you've thought about selling them.
If you take good photographs, you should start booking clients.
If you make jewelry, open an Etsy shop.
If you like fashion, start a brand.
If you write, launch a newsletter.
If you have opinions and a microphone, congratulations, you now have a podcast.
And if you happen to enjoy making sourdough, I'm fairly certain someone will eventually suggest wholesale.
We have somehow reached a point where enjoying something without monetizing it feels like poor financial planning.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
When did having a hobby become a missed business opportunity?
Apparently, Joy Needs a Revenue Stream
There is something deeply American about discovering that someone enjoys an activity and immediately asking how much money they could make doing it.
We're obsessed with the side hustle.
Your job isn't enough.
You should have a passion.
But preferably a passion with scalable revenue.
Suddenly the pottery class you took because you wanted to get out of the house has a logo.
The Instagram account you made because you love interiors needs a content strategy.
The cookies your friends love require packaging.
You started running because it cleared your head, and six months later someone is telling you to become a fitness creator.
Can't anything just remain wonderfully unprofitable?
We Turned Play Into Productivity
Children understand hobbies better than adults.
A child draws a picture because drawing the picture is fun.
They don't immediately ask whether the drawing could become passive income.
They dance badly.
Build things that make absolutely no sense.
Write stories with questionable plot development.
Spend three hours making something that will be forgotten underneath the couch by Tuesday.
The activity itself is enough.
Then we grow up.
And suddenly everything needs an outcome.
We exercise to change our bodies.
Read to improve ourselves.
Travel to create memories.
Cook to eat healthier.
Make things to sell them.
Learn skills to advance our careers.
Even relaxation has become productive.
We're doing breathwork to lower cortisol so we can presumably return to being more efficient afterward.
Maybe we've forgotten what it feels like to do something that leads absolutely nowhere.
Being an Amateur Is Embarrassing Now
I think social media made this worse.
Because now whenever we try something new, we can immediately see someone who has been doing it professionally for twelve years.
You decide to paint.
You make one slightly questionable bowl of lemons.
Then you open Instagram and encounter a 24-year-old artist living in Copenhagen whose paintings are apparently hanging in a boutique hotel in Paris.
Suddenly your lemons feel inadequate.
But your lemons were never competing with theirs.
That's the strange part.
We've started evaluating hobbies using professional standards.
The dinner wasn't restaurant quality.
The photograph wasn't good enough to post.
The pottery is uneven.
The flowers don't look like Pinterest.
The outfit isn't content-worthy.
Who cares?
Maybe the entire point of a hobby is that nobody is grading it.
Some Things Get Worse When Money Arrives
Money changes the relationship.
The cake you loved making becomes the cake someone expects by Friday.
The photographs you enjoyed taking become photographs a client wants edited differently.
The writing you did whenever you had something to say becomes a Tuesday deadline.
The jewelry you made when inspiration arrived becomes fourteen outstanding orders.
The thing that once helped you escape work has quietly become more work.
That doesn't mean we shouldn't build businesses from things we love.
Some of the best careers probably began exactly that way.
There is something wonderful about being paid for something you're genuinely talented at.
But perhaps we should stop assuming monetization is the natural evolution of enjoyment.
Sometimes success ruins a perfectly good hobby.
What Do You Like That Nobody Knows About?
That's an interesting question now.
Not what are you good at.
Not what do you post.
Not what could you turn into a business.
What do you like doing when nobody is watching?
Maybe you make elaborate dinners.
Maybe you rearrange furniture.
Maybe you read terrible romance novels.
Maybe you dance.
Maybe you garden.
Maybe you photograph buildings.
Maybe you make playlists.
Maybe you sew.
Maybe you spend an unreasonable amount of time looking at houses you'll never buy.
Maybe you write.
And maybe nobody needs to know.
There is something luxurious about having a part of yourself that isn't available for public consumption.
No audience.
No metrics.
No comments.
No customers.
Just yours.
We Don't Need to Be Impressive All the Time
Maybe that's what hobbies used to give us.
Permission to be ordinary.
You could play tennis without being particularly good at tennis.
Paint without being an artist.
Write without being a writer.
Bake without owning a bakery.
Dance without performing.
You didn't need to establish expertise before you were allowed to enjoy yourself.
And I think we desperately need more of that.
Because so much of adulthood is already evaluated.
Our jobs have performance reviews.
Our bodies have measurements.
Our finances have credit scores.
Our social lives have follower counts.
Our homes have resale values.
Our workouts have statistics.
Our sleep has a score.
Maybe something in our lives should be allowed to receive a solid C-minus and still bring us enormous joy.
Buy the Supplies Anyway
Take the class.
Buy the paint.
Order the ridiculous amount of yarn.
Get the camera.
Plant the garden.
Write the story.
Learn the piano.
Bake the bread.
Make the magazine.
And when someone inevitably says:
"You could totally sell these."
Smile.
Say thank you.
And then maybe don't.
Don't create the business plan.
Don't research competitors.
Don't build the website.
Don't calculate your margins.
Don't ask yourself whether it could scale.
Make another one because you felt like making another one.
Let it be inefficient.
Let it be imperfect.
Let it take too long.
Let it make absolutely no financial sense.
Because perhaps not everything we love needs to become something we achieve.
Some things should remain wonderfully, beautifully useless.
And I couldn't help but wonder:
If we turn everything we love into work, what exactly are we supposed to do when we need a break from work?
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