Anxiety isn't a hobby.
Let’s find you a different one.
Happy May!
As you’d (hopefully) guess, our team spends a lot of time debating Big Wellness Questions. But we also make time for other pressing issues… like dating app discourse. More specifically, the (oft dreaded) hobby question.
The Apps bring an inevitable pressure to catalogue your hobbies, as well as a familiar twinge of judgment: Does that guy who lists “gardening” actually just keep one houseplant semi-alive? Does that woman truly enjoy fishing or is the fish pic simply a way to lure men? Is a man’s amateur trombone practice cute or cringe?
When we took the “What are your hobbies” question to our group chats, we were met with a surprising onslaught of spiraling (i.e. “Does anxiety count as a hobby?”). Our read is that people feel pressure to have hobbies, but can’t find time, direction, or outlets to cultivate them. “Ugh I feel guilty that I don’t have hobbies” was a near universal reply.
Yes, we probably all should have hobbies—as we’ve covered before, play for play’s sake has real health benefits. But why the guilt? Maybe there’s an easier way! Luckily, we have a devoted hobbyist in our midst, Ciara, who this week brings you the tale of her newfound passion for rockhounding. And if you feel inspired to find your own non-geologic hobby (hounding’s not for everyone; as someone who certainly doesn’t care to distinguish geodes from agates, I get it), we’ve got some tips for finding a hobby at the end too.
And in case you’re wondering, the group chat concurred that trombone is cute, so if that’s your thing… have at it.
Yours in hobby guilt solidarity,
Jocelyn, Prism co-founder, potential birdwatcher or pizza maker?
Ciara is an-LA based creative strategist, rockhound, and community gatherer. One thing that makes her feel well: Waving at drivers from the freeway overpass.
The upside of rock bottom
I spent most of my twenties trying to heal. Going to talk therapy every week (even when it made me feel worse); trying to lose “the last five pounds” (even though contrary to the Kate Moss quote I had as my phone background in high school, everything tasted better than skinny felt); trying to change my attachment style (even though my ex and I just… didn’t work). I was running sprinting crawling towards some imagined moment when I’d finally prove that I was fixed and ready for the rest of my life. Instead, I hit rock bottom—which was, actually, a lot more enjoyable than I imagined.
After a rough breakup and a particularly awful experience with an LA therapist who was actually just a very mid masseuse (true story lol stay safe out there), I took a 17 hour flight to visit my mom in Ireland. I was seeking healing—only this time, instead of overdosing on self-help books, healing looked like dips into the cold Irish Sea, sobs under Sessile Oak trees, and deep, guttural screams. Saturn return type shit.
One particular morning, wrapped in a towel on a rocky beach post-swim, my mind enjoying the calm static I’d learned to anticipate after a 40 degree swim, I found my attention drawn by the stones I was resting on. Curious, I picked one up, marveling at the richness of its dark greens and milky white swirls. I rubbed its smoothness on my face, reveling in the feeling of its figure nestling into my hand. It felt… good. I slipped it into my bag.
Widening my field of vision, I was called to another one. Then another. I walked slowly across the shore, allowing myself to be moved by curiosity. Two hours later, I tramped back to my mom’s house, 20 lbs heavier, and overcome with emotion over a resurfaced memory: 7-year-old me sitting in front of a polished wooden shelf in my childhood bedroom, admiring an array of precious geologic finds.
It feels pretty obvious to me why rockhounding found me again when it did (besides the fact that I’m an earth sign). In my life as a self-fixer, play for play’s sake felt like a waste. I’d only read The Body Keeps the Score three and a half times, so I had no business playing. I had neurons to rewire! Trauma to vanquish! My life was driven by a panicked belief that only through “self-improvement” would I get to the life I dreamed of (mainly, being loved/in love). So, allowing myself the space to do stuff for fun was, well… radical for me. It meant coming back to a childlike version of myself that spent the bulk of her days in pursuit of small, moment by moment pleasures, rather than chasing some vague better self. A version of myself that innately knew living a good life didn’t, couldn’t involve trying so hard. And it meant giving up—not on myself, but on the idea that being enough existed in some distant future. It was here, now.
If you spend your life trying to fix yourself, you get a lot of time back when you realize there was never anything to fix. And if you choose to spend that new free time on finding really cool rocks… well, you get a really big rock collection. You might follow them to the hills of the Mojave Desert, the walls of the San Gabriel mountains, or the rugged beaches along the California coast. You might be called to the banks of Lake Michigan, the red rocks of Sedona, creeks in rural Washington, or even volcanic rock shores in Greece. If you’re really lucky, you might even find yourself with a membership to a local rock club of amateur geologists that your friends affectionately call your “weekly AARP meetings” (s/o to my 84-year-old lapidary shop instructor Jette, love you!). For me, arriving at rock bottom meant realizing that my life didn’t have to exist on the other side of an impossible finish line; it could be right beneath my feet.
FIND CIARA ON
It took a one-two punch breakup for Ciara to find the hobby of her dreams 🥴, but we’d like to think the path doesn’t have to be so hard. So we crowdsourced some chill advice on how to find your thing.
1. Get in the hobby state of mind
Prepare to be bad at it. Embrace embarrassment.
You might not like the first hobby you try. If so, let yourself quit… there are no hobby heroes.
This isn’t about the result, it’s about enjoying the process. If you hate all the mixing, kneading, and waiting of making bread, do yourself a favor and buy a loaf—it’s not a good hobby for you.
2. Try some HATs (Hobby Activity Tests)* 🧢🎩👒
Think about what you liked to do as a kid, and start there.
Crowdsource a list: ask your friends what their hobbies are (we discovered a surprising number of mahjong players in our group chats) or peruse r/craft for ideas.
Take a class (woodworking, tap dancing, SCUBA certification, etc.). Yes, you might have to budget for it, but that probably means you’ll be incentivized to actually go.
3. Evaluate: Don’t like it? Don’t have to do it
Pay attention to unconscious signals. When you’re doing your new hobby, do you feel joy? Calm? Do you lose track of time? Are you eager to do it again? The point is that you’re enjoying it. If not, again, there’s no harm in quitting!
Take it from Ciara: “A friend pointed out that when I’m holding, finding, or working with rocks, I have a little grin plastered on my face. I now notice that my breathing steadies. I get a pleasant tingling in my jaw. Find what your body likes.”
Or… ignore our tips and just do something. Stop thinking. Log off now and sign up for a class / buy a kit / join a friend’s hobby.
* We consider acronym invention a hobby, FYI.
A special hobby edition…
Musical 🦭
Motivated 💪👊
Thanks for reading! Hope the rest of your Sunday is more sparkling gemstones than deceiving pieces of shiny plastic.