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Hobby Or Hinderance?
By Will T, Fri Dec 9th

Ask a room full of people what hobby they have and you will getas many answers as there are people. Others will confess thatthey don�t have a hobby. They probably do; but just don�t labelit as such. By definition, a hobby is an activity or interestpursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged inprimarily for pleasure.

Whether stamp collecting, chat rooms, trains, soft ball,scrapbooking, golf, reading, painting, tap dancing, yard work,crafts, auto mechanics, music, hunting down garage sales,sewing, fishing, cooking, boating, furniture refinishing,javelin tossing or a plethora of other activities or intereststhe key element is balance. You must find balance between yourfamily life and your extracurricular activities.

Too much of a good thing turns bad. Everyone should have anoutlet and a special interest that they enjoy doing forthemselves. Self indulgence, to a point, is quite healthy.Escaping from day to day grinds to take some time to devote toyour special hobby or concentration is therapeutic. You�ve allheard, �if Mamma ain�t happy, no one�s happy.� It doesn�t matterif your role is father, mother, husband, wife, boyfriend,girlfriend, son, daughter, brother or sister, if you�re justgoing to work or school and have no real outside activities,you�re probably not always the most friendly person to bearound.

Conversely, if you bury yourself and it seems to others that allyou care about or all you ever want to do is bang on the drumsall day, you�re setting yourself up or prolonging

discontent.People deal with depression in many ways. Some sleep all thetime. Others want to do nothing but read, read, read. Stillothers will spend hours upon hours downstairs building a bigger,faster widget, just to avoid the real cause of theirfrustrations. Hobbies are supposed to be a healthy outlet, not acatalyst to ignore issues that need addressing.

Likewise, hobbies can get very expensive. Sure snow mobiles,motorcycles and ski equipment are obviously expensive. Butsometimes those seemingly low cost activities can add up. Youstart out with trying to budget for the monthly karate lessons.Then you need (or want) the gi, the uniform. Don�t forget aboutthe protective sparring equipment. Perhaps you think you need tohave a heavy bag or some shields to help you practice. Figure on$30-$50 per tournament that you enter. Of course there�s theuninsured medical and orthodontia costs to be calculated in aswell. �Let�s see, do we pay the mortgage this month, so get thatnew helmet that you just have to have?�

If your hobby is doing more harm than good, if it�s dipping intothe family budget and time allocation, more than you can orshould be spending, it�s time to reevaluate. If you�re not doingsomething outside your standard occupation that you enjoy, it�stime to find something, for your and your family�s sake!