#15 Let hobbies be hobbies

12 September 2025

There was a time when hobbies were just hobbies. You could be terrible at them, start and stop as you pleased, try something weird. Nobody cared, and that was the beauty of it.

Somewhere along the way we lost that. Now every hobby comes with an expectation. If you skateboard, you’re meant to film tricks for TikTok. Buy a camera and suddenly people suggest weddings. Pick up a guitar and it’s “When are you going on tour?” Even if nobody else is telling you to do it, the internet is there with its endless tutorials, goal-setting apps, and progress trackers.

These days your free time feels like another thing to optimise. Like another job. Except this one doesn’t even pay!

The funny part is that hobbies were supposed to be the antidote to all of this. They were the one thing in life that was free from performance, free from competition, free from “return on investment.”

For me, that thing is cooking 👨‍🍳

I love it more than I probably should. Sometimes I have to force myself not to cook, otherwise nothing else gets done. In the evenings, I’ll happily spend hours chopping, stirring, tasting. Cooking for myself, my girlfriend, my family, my friends.

People often tell me they enjoy my food, which is very flattering, but 90% of the joy for me is in the act of cooking itself. Once I’m in the kitchen, I’m in The Zone! Cooking requires all my attention – don’t expect me to chat while I’m doing it – and that’s why I love it so much. It’s a way of switching off after a long day of work (plus there's the added benefit of eating well).

But because people think I'm good at it, occasionally they’ll ask me: “Why don’t you become a chef? Or open a café?” And I know exactly why not. Because the second money gets involved, the whole thing changes. Cooking is fun because it’s all mine… I get to decide whether I want to follow a recipe perfectly or make some bizarre fusion dish that may or may not work.

If it was a job, that freedom would vanish. There’d be rules, expectations, consistency, complaints from customers. At home, I can forget the vegetables in the oven and laugh about it with my girlfriend (admittedly she’s not always laughing). Try that in a restaurant and you’re on the receiving end of a scathing TripAdvisor review.

I want my cooking to stay carefree. That’s what makes it a hobby. And for now, the same goes for this newsletter.

I enjoy writing this because it feels like I’m just sitting down to write to a friend (in fact, that’s exactly what I’m doing – still waiting to break triple figures in subscribers!) At some point, I’d like it to grow, perhaps make some money. Maybe one day there’ll be thousands (or millions, or even billions 🌎) reading every week.

But right now I have no idea where I’m going with it, and there’s no pressure. I’m not thinking about engagement stats or what some stranger on the internet thinks of my words and opinions. I’m writing it because I enjoy the process, and because it helps me reflect on ideas. The moment it turns into “content strategy,” the fun might start to leak away.

The truth is that hobbies don’t have to make us money or impress anyone. They don’t even have to make us better. The point is the doing; the value’s in the experience itself.

The culture we live in makes this harder than it sounds. Social media encourages us to turn everything into content. Even if you’re just out enjoying yourself, there’s a little whisper of “Shouldn’t you be posting this?” Add in the productivity mindset – the idea that rest is wasted, that every hour needs a return – and suddenly it feels indulgent to spend time on something that doesn’t advance your career or your bank balance.

So hobbies may be more important now than ever. Work takes up more of our lives, money feels tighter, and the pressure to use our free time well is relentless. That’s why keeping one thing free from all that pressure matters so much. It’s a reminder that not everything has to be useful. Some things can just be play!

So that’s my reminder this week. Keep one thing in your life completely useless. Something that exists only because it makes you happy. And let me know…

What’s YOUR hobby? (aka the thing that you do purely for the sake of it)

PS. Here’s my quick guide on How To Enjoy a Hobby. Very helpful stuff → wiwilas.com/fun-hobby