Investing in other pursuits: Besides money, put in time and effort to seriously pursue a hobby

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

nursery. I tell myself that hobbies need serious investment and this is what I’ll talk about this week. Coming from a generation that considered frugality as a virtue, it has taken several years for many of us to learn to spend with ease.

In school, we routinely wrote essays about hobbies. In those days, we hardly had any hobby to talk about, but ended up writing imaginary essays on stamp collection, pen friends, and so on. We hardly played any sport beyond the mandatory school hour games.

Our street games back then involved no investment since we made do with stones, sticks and stuff that cost nothing. Learning music, art and dance were for those who were financially better off. To study, and to study more, was our lot.

We did not question this too much. We took pride in our single-minded focus because we did not know better. Then we grew into adults, who worked in the newly liberalised India, with its immense opportunities.

The children left home for newer cities and suddenly the world of hobbies opened up. We did not call them hobbies, but activities outside work and home that required attention and time; and money. The difficulty of spending serious money, even if it was our own, and to do it on ourselves, remained a tough barrier to cross.

It was easy to join a meditation class; or indulge in mass singing of bhajans and shlokas; or sing on Smule; or write on Facebook. These were activity traps that felt like hobbies. Not that we did not try to spend on what mattered to us the most.

We enrolled at the local gym, taking care to utilise the discounts they offered. When we noticed that we were not keeping to the schedules unfailingly, we returned to long walks. We signed up for music lessons with the local teacher.