Earlier this semester, one of my professors had asked the class, “If money didn’t matter, what would your dream job be?” Not only did that question send me into a spiral, but it got me thinking about follow-up questions like,”does this mean I have enough money to do whatever I want, or is this an alternate universe where money just doesn’t exist?” In either case, I realized that if money didn’t matter, I’d be focusing my time on the things I like and on things I could possibly like. I would pick up new hobbies.
If you were anything like me as a child, your parents probably signed up for a bunch of activities but nothing ever stuck. To this day I still struggle to find a consistent hobby to fall back on whenever I’m bored. However, there are plenty of things I haven’t tried or perfected. Most of it being because of the lack of time. It takes time to learn something new, for example an instrument. When I turned 16, I got a guitar because I was so determined to learn to play. Fast forward five years later, I don’t know where my guitar is and the only thing I remember learning is “Eddie Ate Dynamite, Good Bye Eddie” which was the mnemonic used to learn the six strings on the guitar.
There are five main hobbies I would like to try at least once within the next year, and if I am lucky, or dedicated, one of them is bound to stick.
- Pottery: Pottery is like the mature, more sophisticated version of Play-Doh. Who doesn’t love clay?
- Fencing: This might be the influence of iCarly where Freddy Benson made fencing look pretty cool, but I have been thinking of that one episode ever since; you know the one.
- Kickboxing: If I pursued kickboxing, I’d be unstoppable.
- Collecting: Though I have not decided what I would start collecting, I think I’d be pretty good at this considering I was a Littlest Pet Shop collector at the age of nine years old.
- Tennis: Pros- Great way to stay active and the outfits are cute. Cons- I am severely unathletic.
It is very easy to get sucked into the depths of social media and your phone and end up averaging an excessive amount of screen time. I encourage you to seek some hobbies you would like to try out and have some fun with them just in case someone asks you, “So what do you like to do/what are your hobbies?” and you have nothing to follow up with. I only say this because I’ve been there. There will always be a professor that asks you to talk about yourself in class as an icebreaker or in an introduction discussion post. This is also an inevitable question when you meet someone new. If you already have a hobby, try to get a friend interested in it as well.
And I’ll leave you with this: If money didn’t matter, what would your dream job be?