"Happy is the man who can make a living by his hobby!" Prof. Higgins in George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion".
Recently, I came across a few people's opinions on a random survey conducted between ages 12-70 in a certain community event. The topic and questions thrown at the folks were- Have people bid goodbye to hobbies or are hobbies still being considered essential to our lives?
From my personal view, I feel that a hobby is an activity or interest pursued outside a person's regular occupation and engaged in, primarily for pleasure and interest; otherwise it loses its purpose.
It was interesting to read some of the responses and opinions that people shared about pursuing hobbies.
From my daily experience in reviewing resumes, atleast 15% of them have a final paragraph on hobbies and often times I wonder, if this is a mere ornamental additional to a resume or is there more to it than that.
Hobbies can be anything right from surfing the net for constructive purposes, blogging to more traditional ones like gardening, cooking, playing sports, reading, listening to music, art and crafts etc. Whatever be the hobby, it needs an investment of time and lots of passion by the person to keep it going. Due to the technology advancement, computer and video games and watching cartoons on TV have taken precedence over outdoor hobbies.
Some examples that I found worth sharing are-
An older generation Indian mother after relocating to Indonesia, was part of discussion groups to share her knowledge of India with foreigners. She also taught English to adults and children from non-English speaking countries such as Norway, Korea and Indonesia. She found that sharing her knowlesge with the wider world makes an interesting hobby.
Another Indian lady who is a homemaker in Australia spends her weekends making glass paintings and mehendi designs for functions and also earns an income out of this.
Here in Bay Area, there are tons of Indians and their families who conduct classes in Carnatic music, dance, cookery, Tamil language etc. and not only pass on their talent and knowledge but also make a decent living out of doing this. They meet a lot of people and thereby form new friendships and contacts.
Some folks voiced that due to time constraints, they made their profession into a hobby, not sure to what extent that kind of a parochial view can be taken.
Anyways, the bottom line was pursuing a hobby that one enjoys contributes to making a person's life stress free and happy.
Would be interested to hear some of your thoughts on this........
10 comments:
Profession as a hobby? Do they mean they work only when they feel like it? :-)
My opinion is hobbies are taxing in that they require considerable time.
hmm.. so when u review a resume, and you find that the guys regularly does adventure sports.. would you consider hiring him? ;)
i think people find it irresistible to add the hobbies column to the resume, because they somehow want to prove or get the point across that they are not workaholics?
Kamal famously keeps telling that he is doing his hobby as full-time profession. That reflects in his movies as well as his investment back into the film industry.
Do you question the candidate about his hobbies as well, during the interview? The perception of hobbies are different in the western countries compared to India, I think, where someone 'No hobbies' might make a better impression on the employer. Hard-working geek, u see.. ;)
I think that when a hobby becomes ur proffession , it stops being a hobby... the pressure of the work creeps in. Hobbies are essential.. and considering our work life, I remember a pal who listed sleeping as a hobby :)
just gotta make sure that hobbies don't become addictions :)
What do you think blogging is? I don't put this part (I mean blogging) as a hobby in my CVs... unnecessarily it may raise up the questions.
I feel that the hobbies have faded away. They are indeed put in the resumes as an ornamental piece.
Putting a little on the philosophical side.... We always have a need to be satisfied completely by some means or the other, hobby is a way of getting that satisfaction, may it be anything. And satisfaction in many ways produces postive feelings, so that, this positive feelings flow through us!!!
All-
Thanks for your different comments.......
Hobby and making some money out of it too.... that's great. enjoying what u do and making a living out of it too :)
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