Savanna Petersen
Beyond the Daily Grind
Reclaiming my personal life in an overworked culture where free time is converted to work.
by Savanna Petersen
I doubt any twenty-year-old has ever said, "Your twenties are the best years of your life."
Yet I imagine everyone has been told this once or twice. I certainly have. Once by a high school teacher as she grimaced at the dark circles on everyone’s weary teenage faces as she handed out a thick exam book. She said it as an offer of hope. A consolation that “things will be better once you’re out of high school.”
And things eventually did get better in my twenties. But it wasn’t because I turned twenty, or even twenty-one. It was because of the choices I had made.
When I was in college, I was able to unlearn the bad habits I developed in high school for the opportunity to pursue a higher education. I packed my schedule to the brim, challenging myself with AP classes, extracurriculars, and physical activities that society expected me to do. It was an exhausting and brutal schedule.
​
By the time I got home and finished my homework, I would blink before my alarm would go off again.
​
Things will be better in your twenties, I would assure myself.
​
Reflecting on my teenage years as I approach twenty-two in a few months, I can’t say for certain that if I had the choice to go back and re-do it all, I wouldn't change anything.
I assure you, I’m not a psychopath who enjoys running herself into an early grave or stealing candy from babies. No, I was simply a girl who rationalized working hard now meant working less later.
​
I believed that working hard from K-12 would lead to a rewarding experience during the "best years of my life." I was only partially correct.
Taking challenging classes and earning straight “A’s” throughout high school landed me third in my class of 358 students when I graduated. It earned the favor of my teachers, who wrote me stellar letters of recommendation for every college I applied for. My diverse extracurricular activities, volunteer work, and community experiences were boosts in my application to buffer my average SAT scores. (While I can admit that I've never been a great test-taker, I compensate for this by studying harder — a concept my family comedically calls “working harder not smarter”). Almost as a justification for my perceived shortcomings, I tirelessly worked on my college application essay to be the “best version it could be.” Whatever that meant.
I sent out eight college applications without much hope of acceptance. There were other students my age who worked harder than me, I figured. Despite my “promising academic future” in the small town where I grew up, I refused to go to college without being able to afford it. Going to college for me was a matter of whether my scholarships could afford me to go.
It came as a surprise when I was accepted to every college I applied to with a variety of scholarship offers. The best covered 80% of the cost of attending. Yet I knew that wasn’t good enough for my family despite my parent’s assurance that we could “find the money somewhere.”
It’s always uncomfortable, at this point, when people ask, “Why didn’t you just get a job throughout college? Take out a student loan?” I used to claim that I needed that time to focus on my studies and network with professionals. That I couldn’t guarantee that the loans wouldn’t cripple me financially. However, I’m mature enough now to admit that some small part of me probably didn’t find a meager “80%” to be good enough. I had sacrificed so much. Friendships, homemade meals, and personal well-being. Scholarships were supposed to be a reward for everything I had sacrificed.
It wasn’t worth it, in my mind.
The University of Michigan was the last college to respond to my application. A full-ride scholarship. On one condition: attending summer school. It was a program for “at-risk” students. I figured it was due to my SAT score being a solid 245 points lower than the average score of admitted undergraduate students. Or it could have been that being an “academically promising student” in a small town was similar to being a big fish in a small pond with dreams of swimming in the ocean.
The offer felt like a consolation, “she’s not bad given her circumstances.”
Nevertheless, I accepted the offer in a heartbeat. What was the big deal about taking on a little more work over the summer? My family, cheering behind me as I read the letter, was already making calls to share the news with extended family.
I calculated it out in my head. I was young for my grade, so I would turn twenty years old over the summer leading up to my junior year of college. I idealized this date. It was supposed to mark the start of the best years of my life. As I look back on what I was doing on my twentieth birthday, as a senior on the verge of graduating, I was enrolled in classes for the spring semester. I believe I even developed a stress-induced rash all over my body because of a language exam I had that day, worsened by the unusually hot month.
​
​
I despise the claim that your twenties are the best years of your life. It introduces an expectation for how happy I should be — an unrealistically high standard that I fall short of.
I was not yet eighteen when I accepted the offer to go to college — a child who was still attending high school until one month later, in March 2020, when my classes were canceled for two weeks. It was a mandatory COVID-19 lockdown. After those two weeks, my school informed me that I had successfully graduated. Without a prom, exams, or even a goodbye to my friends, I was done with high school.
Just like that. No more homework, extracurricular activities, or volunteering. There was nothing to do except simply “stay at home.”
I slept a lot during those days. I vaguely remember joining my parents’ morning yoga routine, cooking dinner together, or playing fun games at odd hours in the night. Aside from the occasional joke that I was on “stand-by-mode” as if I were some type of machine, it was peaceful. I could isolate myself from the world and relax.
Eventually, two weeks became two months. I turned eighteen sometime during the lockdown. An adult, but still a child. Not yet twenty, I had assured myself.
​
I learned of my mother’s love for Yahtzee. Without fail, she would roll an impossible Yahtzee every game (for those unfamiliar, it means getting all five dice to show the same number within three attempts – it's trickier than it sounds, I assure you). Somehow, she always won with a new high record. I typically ended up in second place, while my dad consistently rolled full houses and found himself in last place. We would often laugh at the absurdity of it all.
My father loves gardening scraps. He would plant the pits of avocados, the top of pineapples, and entire potatoes in any container he could find and fill with dirt. My mom would get upset by how his makeshift gardening containers cluttered up our home. Meanwhile, I was always concerned about whether or not the fruits and vegetables were edible.
​
I took pleasure in sleeping and reminiscing. As the twenty-four-hour mark approached, and I was still asleep, my parents would shake me awake to make sure I wasn’t dead. It wasn’t normal for humans to sleep that much, supposedly. When I wasn’t sleeping, I found myself thinking back to the beginning of the school year when teachers would go around the classroom, asking questions to get to know their students. “What’s your name and what’s a hobby you like to do?”
​
I'd always respond with a grin, "I'm Savanna, and my hobby is sleeping." The class would nod as if it were an acceptable hobby.
​
It wasn’t.
Hobbies are elusive in our culture. Many confuse its actual definition with activities, extracurriculars, side hustles, and even basic needs. Where is the line drawn between all of these similar concepts?
For the most part, the line is drawn based on our motivation and intentions.
Activities
Actions done as work or for a particular purpose. It is done not out of interest, but as part of a routine. Therefore, it is not done in free time since it’s scheduled.
​
An activity I took up was going to the gym at least three times a week. My goal was to get in shape, so I scheduled a time to go and tried to make it a routine. My motivation to go was to feel more confident about my body and to stay healthy. However, I ended up dropping this activity after a month or two since I found it mind-numbingly boring to do repetitive motions for an hour.
Extracurricular Activities
Commitments that are taken with a specific goal or objective in mind, such as improving a resume. As such, they are not pursued during leisure time, but are instead routinely scheduled.
I have a love-hate relationship with extracurricular activities. In high school, it’s a fun way to make new friends and get involved with your school under the guidance of teachers. For instance, the Student Council and the Dance Team were extracurriculars I signed up for to gain leadership experience to improve my chances of impressive a college admission committee. I learned that I enjoy structure, organization, and mentally engaging physical activities.
​
However, extracurriculars in college are an entirely different experience. Most clubs are student-led — on the positive side, this structure offers students more freedom and opportunities to explore and grow. However, having inexperienced leaders introduces tricky power dynamics and there's often little to no accountability for members, creating a less structured environment. For instance, I joined the American Advertising Federation club in college to gain experience as a project manager and to impress employers as I’m applying for jobs. Despite this intention, I was tasked with additional responsibilities outside of my role to “pick up the slack of others.” After simultaneously holding the position of communications chair, finance chair, senior project manager, and copywriter, I learned that I need to advocate for boundaries. If you have ever tried to do this for yourself — and I hope you have — you will know that this causes great internal tension and drama. Be that as it may, my time in AAF was a great learning experience for advocating for change, exploring diverse roles, and navigating conflicts in a professional setting. (I can vouch that employers eat this stuff up in interviews as long as you can phrase it properly).
Extracurriculars can also be non-club-related activities. For example, I took years of French classes despite it not being required as a part of my curriculum in hopes of becoming bilingual. My motivation was to impress future employers and open up possibilities of sending me abroad for business. Despite my years of hard work for such an abstract goal, I realized I hate learning other languages and my only result is a small section on my resume saying I have “elementary proficiency in French,” which I deleted after graduating since je ne parle français.
Side Hustles
Additional work taken on during leisure time to bring in extra money
​
Most of the time, people equate “side hustles” with entrepreneurship. Although writing a book or cutting hair in your dorm room for a set amount of money are legitimate side hustles, they’re less common ways to make money. Tutoring, babysitting, or even mowing lawns are typically what people take up to earn a little extra cash in their free time.
My first side hustle was teaching kids at a local dance studio when I was a teenager. I considered this different than a traditional job since it was something I was doing in my free time outside of school to gain some extra money despite not needing to pay bills. In college, I’m working two part-time jobs to afford my living expenses such as rent, phone bills, groceries, and gas. I would consider these “jobs” since they’re my main source of income — not something I picked up on the side to make more cash. However, there may be many cases where this overlaps, especially in the modern age where working one full-time job isn’t enough to cover all of your living expenses.
Hobbies
Activities or passions done in free time for enjoyment without the intention of receiving other benefits, such as to improve a resume or make money
This is where it gets tricky for most people since it requires an acute understanding of your motivations. For instance, what separates going to the gym as an activity from doing it as a hobby? Well, why are you doing it? If your answer is like mine — to get fit — it’s an activity. If you’re a strange person who genuinely enjoys the gym and would continue to go even if their body wouldn’t change despite all of their hard work, it’s a hobby.
However, I also think hobbies are often mixed up with “basic needs.”
Basic Needs
Essential requirements for human survival (i.e. air, food, water, shelter, sleep, and support)
I decided to include “support” to the five traditional basic needs since humans are inherently social creatures. Forming relationships and building connections are essential for us, but this often goes overlooked in favor of biological needs.
Nevertheless, “sleeping” wasn't a hobby of mine — it was a basic need that I was unable to meet.
Simultaneously, getting enough nutrition from food to sustain you is also a need, which is something I still neglect when prioritizing convenience over quality. My diet throughout high school consisted of boxed pancake mix with high fructose corn syrup and microwavable mac & cheese cups. On a good day, I had some spaghetti with sauce from a jar. Needless to say, I lost 15 pounds in college since I had more control over my schedule, and thus could dedicate more time to eating well.
It’s becoming increasingly common for people to answer that meeting their basic needs are “hobbies,” framing it as if taking care of themselves is something they do for enjoyment rather than out of necessity.
Don’t believe me? Well, what would you consider your hobbies?
​
If you answered, “hanging out with friends,” I would consider that a basic need to be social. It’s also a basic need to eat, which largely includes cooking homemade meals rather than buying convenient options packed with preservatives and little to no nutrients. Yet at the same time, it could be considered a hobby, depending on your motivation. I would consider one of my sister’s hobbies to be “cooking” despite it largely being a basic need since she truthfully enjoys the challenge, but also enjoys the nutrients she gets from it.
​
I’m not shaming those who don’t cook at home — it’s impossibly difficult to buy healthy ingredients and schedule enough time out of your busy schedule to cook. This doesn’t even include the time it takes you to learn how to cook, nor the cleanup time. Nevertheless, those who make their meals from scratch are often accustomed to backlash and criticism. “Is this really what you want to do with your free time? It’s not practical.”
​
No, of course, it’s not practical. The art of cooking homemade meals and desserts is lost in favor of convenience. Since we can simply buy pre-made spaghetti sauce or tasty banana bread at a store, or eat out every night, why should we waste our free time making it ourselves? This line of thinking is flawed. Cooking, just like sleeping, is not a hobby. Rather, it’s a healthy choice we make to properly nourish our bodies.
​
Why is our free time so limited that we’re not even able to meet our basic needs? In place of cooking, we’re expected to buy the convenient options to save time. But how do we spend these extra hours we gain from not cooking?
​
I imagine many people will disagree with my explanations and sentiments, but I want you to know I’m not shaming any particular category. I still buy jarred sauces, microwavable mac & cheese, and even pancake mixes with syrup because they’re convenient, and eating that is better than eating nothing in a pinch. I continue to pick up occasional side hustles by joining paid research studies through my school despite working 30 hours a week while being a full-time student. Yes, I even sacrifice a few hours of sleep some nights in favor of getting my work done on time. I still do things simply for the sake of bringing it up in an interview to increase my chances of being hired or getting a raise. Yet I try to balance being realistic and practical in my life with enjoying it. I’m still learning what hobbies I enjoy and trying things out (often failing), but I think the first step is acknowledging your motivations.
​
​
-
If you’re happy to do it, it’s a hobby.
-
If you’re doing it for some purpose other than joy, it’s an activity, extracurricular, or side hustle.
-
If you need it to live or function properly, it’s a need.
It took me a while to discover what I enjoyed. I reasoned that if I didn't have my own hobbies, I could simply join others while they pursued theirs.
When my summer classes began — virtually, of course, as COVID-19 was still rampant — my professors asked me the same "get-to-know-you" questions. During those months spent at home out of boredom, most everyone had picked up things to do. Although we didn’t share our motivations for engaging in them, we called them "pandemic hobbies" — researching astrological charts and signs, high-intensity workouts, listening to podcasts, journaling at night, learning an instrument — you name it, it was said.
​
I panicked. Although I joined my family in cooking, gaming, and gardening, I didn’t enjoy the acts independently. They were my parents' hobbies, not mine.
​
Sleeping was too shameful to share after my revelations, so I smiled nervously and said, "I’m Savanna, and my hobby is hanging out with my family."
​
Not quite a hobby, but getting closer.
​
The classes and meetings always tended to run over by at least 15 minutes (sometimes even by hours!) despite the numerous awkward and tense pauses. No one had any words to say, yet no one seemed willing to log off. Because what else was there to do? With extracurriculars canceled and meeting up with friends nearly impossible, hobbies could only offer so much entertainment.
The question lingered: What could we do with all the time we had?
​
As the world paused, we lost our ability to overwork ourselves, so we found meaning in hobbies.
Although working hard can set you up for success, overworking yourself now doesn’t reduce your future workload. It develops a “hustle mindset” where you constantly strive for success at the expense of your well-being.
​
You feel guilt for taking care of yourself.
​
You start neglecting yourself.
​
You burn out.
​
By prioritizing "productivity" and chasing after success while disregarding free time, we have lost our purpose in life.
​
So, I ask you: what are your hobbies?
Freshly baked, blindingly white banana bread is a sight I never want to see again.
My first time baking bread, a supposedly “easy recipe for baking beginners,” and I had failed in a way the internet has never seen before. Frantically Googling what could have gone wrong to make my banana bread pure white yielded no results. Even looking up pictures of white banana bread showed little to no resemblance to the monstrosity I had created, as I stared in shocked horror at the loaf sitting on my stove, with no attempt to conceal my dumbfoundedness.
I grabbed the stupid pan with my oven mitts and huffed into the living room, pouting angrily as I stood in front of the TV to interrupt my family’s show.
​
It must have been a hilarious sight. Me, standing there in an old Valentine’s apron with thick oven mitts, pouting and glaring at the pan in my hands. Everyone’s eyes shifted cautiously to the white banana bread.
​
It truly must have been hilarious because everyone burst out laughing, which only deepened my resentment of the awfully pale loaf.
​
Collectively, it took us an hour to figure out why the bread turned out white. After researching and meticulously analyzing the words in the recipe, we found a single line — “fold the ingredients together.” The internet kindly informed me that “folding” is the extremely gentle version of “mixing.”
​
Essentially, I overmixed the batter to the point I accomplished baking the world’s first ever purely white banana bread.
​
I snorted at the thought before a few giggles escaped my traitorous mouth. By the time I was shoving the banana bread in the trash, I was bent over gasping for air from laughing so hard.
It’s amazing how horribly we can fail at the simplest tasks.
​
I couldn’t tell you why I decided to make banana bread at that moment. I had never tasted it before and I wasn’t much into baking at that point. I was sitting on the couch, getting hungry and thinking about how the fridge was empty and that I needed to make a grocery list and clip coupons and coordinate a visit to the store with my roommate — and then I was in the kitchen looking at overripe bananas.
You can only sit with frustration and exhaustion for so long.
For me, it’s been a long time coming. I sat with my frustration since I first started school. It was learning the alphabet, forming proper sentences, adapting appropriate social behavior, getting straight “A’s,” and taking up extracurriculars. It doesn’t end after school; we’re expected to join the workforce and continue working until we retire, all the while filing taxes, eating healthy, and making routine appointments — dentist, eye exams, physicals, and gynecologist visits. It’s exhausting with no end in sight.
​
We put a lot of pressure on ourselves to learn and produce and “stay on track.”
​
The 2020 pandemic halted this abruptly.
​
Almost overnight, social expectations shifted dramatically. We were expected to stay at home and not add to the issue. This meant doing nothing. It meant we had “free time” without any expectations to work as usual.
​
To many, this was terrifying. It limited what we were allowed to do, and who we could see.
But for me, the pandemic was forced freedom.
At first, I didn’t know what to do with my free time since the concept was foreign to me as I had always dutifully followed the path of what society deemed an "upstanding citizen.” But what does that even mean?
Historically, being an "upstanding citizen" meant working as long as you possibly could, and then some.
When was the last time you negotiated for a few days off? No, I’m not talking about scheduled breaks and occasional holidays where we’re expected to be off. I’m asking when you have actively advocated for taking additional time off.
​
It’s an uncomfortable feeling as I step back to try to recall the last time I had. Of course, there have been spring breaks, summer vacations, and occasional holidays built into the educational curriculum and part-time student jobs — but I have never negotiated for additional time off. I think I’ve even worked through much of these breaks, if I’m being honest.
​
I feel as if I’ve insulted the workers who have advocated to limit the workday all throughout history. Even before the 19th century, people negotiated for time off. Supposedly, even “enslaved persons 'negotiated' with masters for time off."
​
It would be entirely insensitive and inaccurate to compare our situations to those of enslaved individuals, yet I can’t help but consider the implications. Are today’s workers genuinely free?
In the years after the Civil War (1861 - 1865), the sense of freedom remained out of reach. Despite the passing of the 13th amendment that largely granted slaves their freedom (well, as much freedom as one could get with prejudiced and segregator laws), no worker — of any race or gender — felt entirely free. The battle wasn’t over, so we adopted the popular slogan and protested:
​
“Eight hours labor, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” — Robert Owen, Welsh manufacturer and labor rights activist
I’m not sure how realistic this cry is, given that there’s more to do in a day than ever. Sleeping 8-10 hours a day, practicing good hygiene, cooking homemade meals, maintaining a tidy living space, fostering social relationships, potentially starting a family, managing your finances, and commuting.
My to-do list is ever-growing.
​
Nevertheless, Americans advocated for a law to limit the workdays to no more than 8 hours a day. A good start, but still not enough in my eyes. Legislators passed the law in 1867 with one major loophole: employers were allowed to contract with their employees for longer hours.
You might think it’s not a bad deal, but consider your position. How much power do job applicants and employees have over their interviewers and bosses in the 21st century? Not much. And in the 19th century, with fewer federal laws to protect them, workers had even less influence than we currently have. To put that in perspective for you.
​
So employers relied on contracts and continued to expect their employees to work 12 to 14 hours a day, six days a week.
​
If you didn’t agree, you didn’t have a job.
It will come as no surprise that the first group to successfully obtain an “eight-hour workday without a decrease in pay” were government workers in 1869.
Typical, but it was at least progress.
​
Then the American Industrial Revolution (approx. 1876-1900) took over our nation like a storm. We created new forms of transportation, made countless innovations in various industries, and discovered electricity — but how much work did this require?
Despite the exhaustion and protests, nobody had tracked the average workweek of an American employee until the end of the 19th century.
Before researching the results, I had estimations in my head. Despite having read countless textbooks and articles throughout my life stating that the typical workday was once roughly 12 to 14 hours, I have never fully conceptualized this information. It’s undeniably grim and far from an ideal schedule, yet somehow it seemed manageable. I mean, throughout high school, I managed school, homework, extracurricular activities, and part-time jobs, occasionally working up to 14 hours on some days.
​
It’s exhausting, but possible. Certainly not healthy by any means, but doable. I felt like I could endure working 14-hour days for a couple of years.
​
Amidst these taxing days in my youth, I found comfort in the realization that I wasn't facing 14-hour workdays every single day of the week — a crucial detail I overlooked while estimating the average workweek of 19th-century American workers.
​
The government officially tracked workers’ hours for the first time in 1890; the average American worked 100 hours each week.
​
Of the 168 hours in a week, Americans had worked roughly 100 of them. This meant working a little over 14 hours every single day of the week without rest. In their remaining 68 hours a week, they had to wisely divide their time between sleeping, eating, and commuting.
Forget having a personal life — who had time for hobbies? What was “free time”? Had they never heard the term “work-life balance”?
According to my research, no, they hadn’t.
​
Baby boomers were the first to use the term “work-life balance” in the 1970s and 80s as they strove to “achieve a balance between career, family, and other areas of their lives.” Honestly, I don’t think they get enough credit for popularizing the term, especially considering the adverse health effects associated with the absence of a proper balance between work and personal life.
According to a February 2015 study, only 45% of employees reported feeling as if they were achieving work-life balance. Truthfully, I find this number to be a little higher than expected.
But I digress.
​
It took fifty years before American society saw a significant change. In 1940, the US passed the Fair Labor Standards Act to establish the 40-hour work week. While there was and continues to be no limit on how many hours an employee can work overtime, employers are required to pay at least one and one-half times an employee's regular rate of pay in compensation.
​
Despite securing the eight-hour workday, we failed to achieve the “eight hours of recreation” and the “eight hours rest.”
​
Although these laws helped limit our official working hours, our personal lives took a massive hit. In response to the reduced number of hours, employers did less for their employees.
Have you ever thought about the disappearance of pensions?
It used to be the company’s responsibility to ensure their employees received guaranteed monthly checks after they retired. How much they would receive was based on various factors, such as their salary, age, and number of years in the company.
​
Pensions slowly began to die off in the 1980s, following the public’s cry for greater work-life boundaries. In place of pensions were 401(k) plans that pushed the responsibility of securing retirement savings from the employer to the employee. From your company to you. Now, you’re responsible for setting aside a portion of your paycheck to put in a 401(k) savings plan to ensure you can safely retire.
​
Your to-do list just grew.
​
By shifting the responsibility of tasks like these onto the individual, our idea of what is “work” and what is “leisure” has drastically changed. Although we’re clocking in less hours than ever before, we’re making less money and have more responsibilities than ever before. Some things got worse, other things got better.
​
Boundaries have been blurred — expectations have shifted.
​
The message I’m getting is to work hard at a company for at least a fourth of my week, every week, until I retire at 67 (a number that may increase after 2024 as some lawmakers are pushing for this age to increase to 70). On top of all of that, I’m expected to set aside a portion of my meager bi-weekly paycheck into a retirement account, an emergency fund, and a savings account… all the while paying rent that is over 70% of my income.
Well, that’s bleak. No, thank you. Where is the button to “opt-out” of this culture of hustling and being productive until all of the life has been sucked out of us?
But hold on, let's not forget about inflation.
The average salary per hour for an unskilled factory worker in 1890 was $1.18. Sounds awful, right? Well, accounting for inflation, an unskilled worker received what would be $40.24 in 2024.
Is your hourly salary above that?
​
If we reverse the script, and I translate my hourly salary of $15 (which is well above minimum wage in Michigan) in 2024 to 1890, I would be making the equivalent of $0.44 an hour.
As a soon-to-be college graduate, I’m making way less than what an unskilled worker would have been making in the past.
​
The situation is impractical, to say the least.
​
No wonder I work two part-time jobs on top of being a full-time student.
​
Imagine it’s 1890, and you’re making $1.18 without needing a college degree or any formal training and you’re working 100 hours a week. For simplicity, let’s say you work 49 weeks a year. Your annual salary would be $5,782 — the equivalent of roughly $197k.
​
You would be pressed for time, but not money.
​
In 2024, the national average annual salary is $59,384. Yes, we work less than 100 hours a week, but we also don’t adhere to a strict eight-hour workday — depending on the year, we work a little more or less than 40 hours a week. Regardless, wages aren’t keeping up with the cost of living.
Logically, we should be pressed for money, but not time.
Yet why are we so busy despite working about 40 hours a week?
Of course, the trend of shifting responsibility from the employer to the individual does play a role in making us feel pressed for time; technology does as well.
With the introduction of technology to mass society, we’re more accessible than ever to our workplace. Coworkers and bosses can contact you at any hour on any day, blurring the lines between working hours and personal time.
​
Let’s be honest, how many times a day do you check your email? Respond to something work-related outside of your official hours? And what about emergencies — how do you even know it's an emergency if you're not constantly checking in?
​
The point is, even if you're not physically working beyond your set hours, are you ever truly free from thinking about work? As such, we’re constantly forced to stay alert and “on” despite being off the clock.
​
Thus, we’re pressed for time and money.
The first step to navigating this reality is to understand the root of the issue.
Why is it that when we have free time, we don’t take up hobbies or do something that would make us feel happy? My answer to that is that when I come home after a long day, I want to do something easy and mindless. I’m a relatively lazy person, so I would prefer to just lay on the couch and scroll through social media for a bit. Picking up hobbies is just too much work and it’s difficult. It’s my nature to avoid that.
​
Wrong.
​
I’m not inherently a lazy person who can’t be bothered to pick up hobbies — I’m an individual who has been burned out by a culture that “praises overworking and prioritizing work overall which results in shaming (both intentional and unintentional) people who don’t want to work all the time for monetary success.”
​
I don’t want to work all the time for monetary success. I enjoy many other things in life, such as baking, writing, and reading. Yes, they’re rather private hobbies, but I’m a relatively private person in all aspects of life. However, I’m particularly elusive about my passions.
​
When others ask me what I enjoy doing in my free time, I feel as if I’m keeping a secret. I don’t go into much detail and give broad answers. It’s not because I enjoy doing scandalous things or am ashamed of my joys, I’m just rather protective of them.
I can easily tell you I enjoy baking, but I would prefer not to share recipes or pictures of what I’ve already made.
​
I can easily tell you I enjoy writing, but I dislike sharing what types of writing I enjoy dabbling in.
I can easily tell you I enjoy reading, but I would strongly prefer not to share genres, books, or authors that engage me.
​
Many people find this strange. Myself included. Yet discussing the things that bring you joy — and nothing other than simple joy — allows people to criticize and corrupt them. If I tell someone I enjoy baking, people ask if I post videos of my recipes online to get revenue streams. If I like writing in my free time, why don’t I write a novel to publicize and profit off of? And if I tell someone I enjoy reading romance and fantasy novels, I run the risk of being told I’m wasting my time and should read “real books” instead.
​
But that wouldn’t be enjoyable anymore — that would be work.
​
Passions and hobbies are fragile in a productivity-driven hustle culture, so I protect them with strict boundaries and privacy. If you want to talk to me about my passions and genuine joys in great depth, with all of the love and anger in my heart, no.
​
By maintaining a sense of privacy, I'm able to create a safe space where all of the external pressures of the world can't reach me. When I'm doing something I enjoy — something I'm doing for no reason other than intrinsic joy — there is no room for me to stress about productivity, social judgment, or anything else that could weigh on my soul.
​
It's just me and what I enjoy.
But, Savanna, how do you connect with others? Don’t you get lonely?
​
I have the privilege of being an introvert, which works for my penchant for being private. However, if the topics of hobbies or interests come up, I gauge the opinions and feelings of other people in the room.
​
Did they bring up their passions first? How do they feel about it? Are they generally a welcoming person who doesn’t poke fun or criticize you (or at least to your face)?
An example is when I was meeting who is my current roommate. During one of our first meet-ups, she organically brought up a show that she was currently watching. She vaguely described the plot and it made me pause. It sounded familiar. After taking a second to think, I jerked towards her with wide eyes, “You’re watching XXX?” She reacted cautiously, shifting uncomfortably until I exclaimed, “That’s one of my favorite animes!”
​
Her face lit up with joy. We shared a genuine hobby that we often have to approach apprehensively since it’s a heavily judged interest. I won’t deny that some animes have extremely uncomfortable plots, characters, or tropes, but there’s a wide variety of shows to enjoy.
Despite this, bringing this up to the wrong type of people can result in negative outcomes, such as being called a “weeb” (a derogatory term to mock someone who is obsessed with Japanese culture) or being associated with child-like interests. More extreme reactions are being fetishized by intense fans or being asked inappropriate questions like “Do you watch hentai?” (For those fortunate enough to not know what this is, don’t look it up; it’s essentially porn for anime).
It’s important to note that intentions don’t really matter that much when discussing personal joys. You can mean well, but if you’re not able to relate to someone else’s interest, it can do harm to react.
​
Video games are not one of my hobbies, but they are my boyfriend’s. When he gets excited about one of his games, I smile and ask him questions to learn more about it so he can talk about his joys with me without fear of judgment. Alternatively, imagine if I glanced at him while he was playing to say, “I don’t like video games, but it’s great that you do,” then walked away. Although well-intentioned, it might feel a little isolating and unnecessary. It would be better to simply not say anything.
I’ve pestered you about what your hobbies were at least twice now. I don’t expect you to answer me (that would be hypocritical since I largely kept mine private), but I urge you to consider what you would count as your “hobbies.”
It’s okay if the list is small, if some of the things are as simple as smiling at a stranger who returns the gesture — whatever makes you genuinely happy.
​
It’s okay to not want to tell me or anyone else, but it’s important to have a list.
​
Perhaps your list is quaint, a reminder to prioritize personal time by putting up more work-life boundaries. Maybe it's blank, prompting you to explore something you’ve always wanted to do, or something you’ve never considered trying before. If you’re nervous, be as private as you’d like or force a friend to try it out with you.
​
Regardless of your approach, take a moment to reflect on how you spend your time. Where is the line between work and play for you?
“Instead of telling people to just work harder, wake up earlier start another side hustle, or just start a business, perhaps we need to turn the conversation and ask why in order to succeed we must work ourselves to death in a hyper capitalistic society? Despite what hustle culture tries to convince us of, getting adequate sleep is important, taking care of yourself is important, turning off your computer sometimes to take a break is important.” - Claudia Ovejero
About the Author
When I'm not on the daily grind, I unwind with the select few hobbies I have. No need to pry — they're probably not what you expect anyway. Let's just say they keep me sane despite the chaos of living in a hustle culture called “21st Century America.”
​
From this website, I hope you learn how to say “no” and are encouraged to limit your grind to reclaim your personal life — as privately, loudly, or daringly as you would like to.
