habits

short term hobbies and the joy they bring

Photo by Anastasia Zhenina on Unsplash

On a fairly regular basis, I clear stuff out or Marie Kondo my life. I clear out the closet, and the bathroom, I de-clutter constantly. Last week I moved stuff that I had in my bedroom into the guest bedroom, which is currently becoming a large clutter closet that in itself needs to be tidied but that is a mission for another day. I came across a large knitting bag filled with yarn of varying sizes and colours, large knitting needles, and an unfinished project.

I clearly don’t knit anymore and it’s just gathering cat hair and dust in the corner. I’ve been resistant to the idea of getting rid of it.

When lockdown first began, I had — as millions of others did — plenty of time on my hands and could learn to do anything. I chose knitting after a friend introduced me to it and I became hooked (it’s a knitting pun). When I learn something new, I deep dive into it. I’m talking Youtube tutorials, self-help books, and hour-long Facetime sessions with my friend — the full learning experience. It gave me something new to do and kept me busy during a time that felt extremely turbulent — all I had to do was concentrate on hooking some yarn around these giant sticks and hope I didn’t screw it up.

I did this for exactly the amount of time that it brought me comfort, which was about five months. When work became busier and other just general life things cropped up, I stopped. I set aside my side project on the assumption that I would return to it eventually. I’d go through periods where I’d think of this knitting project and wondered if should I continue it, just to at least put to rest the fact that I started something and finished it till the end. No loose ends. Sometimes I’d return to it, do a few hooks and stitches, and then settle it back in the bag. Ultimately, I decided that this was going to be a short-term habit.

It’s an unpopular opinion to have a short-term habit because society deems it to be part of an unsustainable routine which jostles against the core focus of longevity and cultivating meaningful goals. However, life changes and things that suit me now may not fulfil me later down the line, does that make me a villain?

When you think about it in broader terms, the motivational pick-me-up lines always follow some sort of backhanded compliment: Well, you tried that’s most important; she did her best; not everyone is built to do it all. You’re either succeeding or failing; there is no in-between. It’s a one-dimensional thought process. A highly competitive nature doesn’t serve much purpose other than to remind you that you have to keep going to be better than them. I don’t see how life can be liveable if we only assume growth is a way to measure success and when you don’t grow, you fail. We’re fixated on this need to be on a constantly progressive path - like a treadmill that never stops — rather than assessing if it’s right for us; if what we’re doing still brings us joy. In some sense, we’ve forgotten what it’s like to focus on what we want and whether we really need it anymore. And within that, we’ve forget what it’s like to enjoy something without turning it into a money-making scheme.

I’m shifting my thought process — learning to accept the idea that I can do some things just for a while. Knit for a while. Journal for a while. Take up running for a while. If it suits my needs and it brings me joy, why not do it? Even if only for a while. It seems that we no longer recognise that life isn’t about staying the “course” and you can just change up your life, however you see fit.

When looking through a self-improvement lens, we view things as two categories: it’s either good for us or bad, but to view something as either one thing or another is suffocating. It can just be a short-term habit that brings you something new, something refreshing, something…different. We often view things with the sense that they must benefit us for growth, however, I think that we’re not just growing but we’re constantly evolving as persons. We adapt to our current circumstances all the time and what works for me now, may not work for me in a few months' time, or even a few years. And that’s the joy of a short-term habit. It doesn’t have to last forever, because how I feel and interact doesn’t remain the same either.

Shifting my mindset to appreciate short-term habits has also reframed how I look at the hobbies that I have. If I want to bake every day and purchase new cookery items and cookbooks and fully dive into it, I will and when I set it aside for a few weeks or even months, it’s not a result of me “giving up” but of changing direction. The excitement of having little short-term habits means that I do it when I feel like it and it brings a form of ease and depth to my life. I have a lot of little short-term habits and hobbies that bring joy to my life - gardening, baking, knitting, photography - that I will dive into for months on end before shortly setting them aside for something else; I simply cannot pursue it all at the same time. But that’s the point; there’s no goal or aim to get it done. I can simply enjoy it for what it is.

I still keep that knitting bag with that blanket project that I hope to finish, even if it takes a really long time to do so.

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