5MM CULTURE SHIFT - HAVE HOBBIES BECOME ANOTHER FORM OF PRODUCTIVITY_

Remember when hobbies were just hobbies?

You read a book because you enjoyed it. You went for a run because it felt good. You cooked because you were hungry. You painted because you felt like painting. And more than that, hobbies were things you took part in for the fun of it and for escaping the stresses of the world. 

But now, it seems like everything has to come with a goal attached to it. We’re not just reading anymore — we’re trying to read 50 books a year. We’re not just running — we’re tracking our pace, our distance and trying to beat our personal best. Even cooking can become content for Instagram. Even worse, we are starting to think of ways to monetise our hobbies. 

Somewhere along the way, our hobbies started looking suspiciously like work. And maybe that’s the shift: we’ve become so obsessed with improving ourselves that we’ve forgotten how to do things simply because we enjoy them.

Have our hobbies become another form ofproductivity, or is there nothing wrong with wanting to get better at the things we love?