Is Your Hobby Now A Full-Time Job?

My first flatmate, somewhere in Newfoundland, Canada, loved organizing parties and cooking. One day we had this conversation about making our hobby a full-blown business. She and her family moved to Ontario when she was a toddler. One on the side, she crochets just like me and loves adventure. We both love cooking. Normally, we chat about this business thing from time to time, wondering about how cool it would be as full-time entrepreneurs. Then she said something profound to me.

She said she enjoys doing it because it does not feel like an obligation or a job. She also does it for appreciative friends and family. Once that fun hobby becomes a business, the joy in it can be lost, and the focus on making money and all the processes involved stresses you out. Hence, she prefers to keep a good job with benefits while she sustains her hobbies on the side.

Yes, there are people who have successfully converted their hobby into a million-dollar business, but this is not about them. This is about that section of society that sees things from the perspective of my flatmate and may want to keep enjoying their hobby in their space. You know, like people who have gone round the world but prefer to keep their business private... no pictures, no stories. However, others have turned their fun hobby of traveling into a huge platform that they can connect with millions all over the world.

After we had that conversation, I have sat down a couple of times to ask myself if I want to convert any of my hobbies into a business. I already self-published a book, and that book was my first attempt ever at putting something out there for sale in the form of writing. Sold some copies, and I am thankful for the experience to learn on my publishing journey. I once worked as a contributor for some magazines and publications, and I cannot tell you the mental stress of trying to deliver "that standard of writing" within specific deadlines. I eventually quit because the experience was totally different from writing in the context I desired. It was writing like my life depended on it, and because that platform/magazine had an audience they had to appeal to, it made me anxious.

I went back to writing for fun, writing to put something out there—not always motivational or inspirational but for the sake of expressing my thoughts—the same way I was writing before being approached by those editors who read a couple of articles on my blog. The weight of having to push out publications because your career, survival, and paycheck depend on it can be overwhelming. I never want to be under that kind of pressure. At least, the editors at the publication approached me because of what I was already doing: the way I wrote and expressed myself. Let me go back to my very origin. A thing or a person becomes "the standard" too many times because of the measure of success, especially in this internet age. It should not be the reason a thousand others and their efforts become invalidated.

This is like when you are doing online content for fun, and then you find yourself in a situation where you must appeal to the audience for engagement; the pressure is mad! I once did content creation for scholarships and study abroad at some point. In fact, some of the people who e-know me have been because of that connection. The effort it took to get up and curate these things for strangers wondering if they like it or not, wondering the level of engagement, crushed my morale and the desire to sustain creativity from that angle.

There is a kind of desperation to be accepted as a content creator, and the work involved is often underestimated. Content creation is HARD work that must be sustained if you want to make that money. Let's not even talk of the resources involved. I guess I am not fully ready to be that kind of "content creator" yet, but it was good while it lasted.

I crochet for fun and the meaning I feel creating something. I love to read and write for fun and to express myself. I love the space within which I do these things. However, it is more important for me to enjoy what I do than to be obsessed with forcing connections with strangers. I have struggled with finding what topic to write on some days because I wanted that engagement and possibly to see how much money could be made "writing on issues people care about". Hence, I had to start tailoring my writing in a specific way to fit into some standard that the bandwagon would "appreciate".

Well, I am back to writing from a place of deep self-expression and satisfaction, with my Nigerian conversational English, and it is the best decision I have made in a long while. To write about daily experience and life as I had done in the past, which makes the act of writing enjoyable. I have also excused myself from the burden of publishing anything academic besides my dissertation (maybe later on I can stress about publishing an academic article). Already, I don't even want my life to revolve around my certifications and degrees.

I get what my flatmate means about keeping her hobbies as a hobby. I have focused more on building and excelling in my community development career in paid employment while doing other things for fun. I can then manage the income I have to expand the hobby in whatever way I choose, but I always have something to fall back on. Let me not lie; choosing a life where you can deliberately rest these days—to have no ambition on some days and just be content—can sometimes feel like a radical rebellion. Yes, I already commercialized my writing because I already published a book (available on Selar and Amazon), and I will publish more books in the future, but the difference is that I am doing these things on my own terms.

This is one of the blessings of this technology age and how much freedom we have to elevate our creative side. I am living full time but not on my hobbies, and I am not under the pressure to survive on them. Hopefully, if I ever have to survive on my hobbies, a strong foundation will have already been laid, surrounded by a strong community where we can support each other through the highs and lows of life.

Like my flatmate, I want to always enjoy what I do for fun, and the meaning it brings to my life is never lost on me. I want to continue to sit in the joy and the spark while I do these things. Yes, making money off a hobby is a good thing, but I never want to sacrifice so much that I lose myself because I am trying to survive or build an empire rooted in my hobby. Self-expression through a hobby also gives me and the craft more room to naturally evolve and bloom into something rewarding. For now, let me focus more on writing, possibly publishing another book.