Latest / Still Standing: Stories of Resilience, Survival & Strength / Why Your Useless Hobby Is Actually Saving You | Still Standing
Transcript
- You’ve spent the last hour staring at a half-finished watercolor painting that looks nothing like a landscape, and for the first time all day, your chest isn’t tight. That feeling right there? That is not wasted time; that is your soul taking a deep breath. I want you to think about the last time you did something purely because it felt good, with absolutely zero intention of turning it into a side hustle or a career. Maybe it was knitting a scarf that was slightly too wide. Maybe it was rearranging your bookshelf by color instead of author. Or maybe, just maybe, it was sitting on your porch watching the rain fall without trying to capture the perfect photo for Instagram. We live in a culture that is deeply suspicious of anything that doesn’t produce. If you aren’t monetizing it, optimizing it, or posting about it, our internal editors whisper that we’re being lazy. We treat our free time like an empty spreadsheet that needs to be filled with productivity. But here’s the truth I’ve had to learn over and over again: some things are sacred precisely because they have no value outside of the act itself. When I burned out from my corporate life, I didn’t just lose my job; I lost my sense of self-worth because I had tied my entire identity to output. I thought if I wasn’t generating revenue, I wasn’t generating worth. It took me years to unlearn that. And the thing that helped me most wasn’t another productivity hack or a new app. It was picking up a cheap set of charcoal pencils and drawing terrible, smudged circles for twenty minutes a day. No one saw them. I couldn’t sell them. They were useless. And that uselessness was the only thing that kept me sane. There is a specific kind of anxiety that comes with admitting you enjoy something 'just' for the sake of enjoying it. I remember telling a friend once that I loved restoring old vintage typewriters. Her immediate reaction wasn’t joy; it was concern. She asked, 'But will you ever sell them?' I said no. She looked confused, as if I had admitted to eating vegetables for fun rather than nutrition. That confusion is so common. We are taught that every skill must have a return on investment. If you can’t put it on a resume, does it even count? But resilience isn’t built in the boardroom alone. It’s built in the quiet moments where you are practicing patience, where you are allowing yourself to be bad at something without judgment. When you invest time in a hobby with no monetary value, you are reclaiming your autonomy. You are saying, 'This time belongs to me. Not to my employer, not to my family, not to the algorithm.' It is a radical act of self-preservation. In a world that constantly demands more of your attention, giving your time to something that gives back nothing but peace is a rebellion. And it is necessary. Take a breath with me. Let’s sit in that for a second. Think about the difference between doing and being. When you are working for money, you are always in the mode of doing. You are moving from task A to task B. You are chasing a result. But when you are gardening, or playing an instrument badly, or baking bread that might burn, you are in the mode of being. This shift is subtle, but it changes your nervous system in ways that work cannot touch. When you engage in a purposeless hobby, you allow your brain to enter a state of flow without the pressure of performance. There is no deadline. There is no client calling to ask why the font size is wrong. There is just you and the clay, or the paint, or the dirt under your fingernails. I realized this during a particularly rough winter. I started collecting smooth stones from the riverbank near my house. Just stones. I would put them on my windowsill. People who visited would ask, 'Marissa, what are these for?' I’d say, 'For looking at.' They didn’t understand. How could you spend energy gathering objects that serve no function? But for me, those stones were anchors. They reminded me that I existed in the physical world, that I could feel the cold water, the weight of the rock, the sun on my back. It wasn’t productive. It was present. And presence is the antidote to anxiety. One of the greatest gifts of having a 'useless' hobby is that it gives you permission to be bad at things. In our professional lives, we are terrified of failure. We hide our mistakes. We polish our presentations until they shine. But in your kitchen garden, or your sketchbook, you can fail beautifully. You can write a poem that rhymes terribly. You can bake cookies that are flat and chewy. And you know what? The world doesn’t end. In fact, you might laugh. You might eat the cookie anyway. This ability to fail without consequence is crucial for resilience. It teaches us that our worth is not tied to our perfection. When I first started hiking, I was terrible at it. I got lost. I ran out of water. I complained the whole time. But I kept going. Not because I was becoming a trail runner, but because I liked the silence. The lack of stakes allowed me to show up imperfectly. And over time, that imperfection became a strength. I learned to trust myself even when I was struggling. I learned that I could survive my own mistakes. That lesson bled into everything else. It made me braver in my relationships, bolder in my decisions, and kinder to myself. All because I refused to let my hobbies have to be perfect. Think back to when you were seven years old. What did you love doing before you learned what was 'cool' or 'practical'? Maybe you drew monsters on the walls. Maybe you built forts out of couch cushions. Maybe you collected rocks or bugs. As adults, we often suppress that inner child because we think we need to be serious. We think seriousness equals maturity. But that playful part of you holds a wellspring of creativity and joy that we desperately need. Engaging in a hobby with no monetary value is a way of reconnecting with that child. It’s a way of remembering that play is not frivolous. Play is essential. I see so many women who have forgotten how to play. They have become so efficient, so capable, so reliable, that they have lost the ability to just be messy. But messiness is where the magic happens. It’s where new ideas are born. It’s where healing occurs. When you allow yourself to play, you are telling your brain that it is safe to relax. You are signaling that you are worthy of rest, not because you earned it through labor, but simply because you exist. In a society that measures success by net worth, choosing to measure your days by moments of pure, unadulterated joy is a quiet rebellion. It is a declaration that you are more than your utility. You are not a machine designed to produce. You are a human being designed to experience. This doesn’t mean you should neglect your responsibilities. Of course you pay your bills. Of course you do your work. But you must also protect the spaces in your life that are off-limits to productivity. These spaces are not gaps to be filled; they are gardens to be tended. So, I invite you to look at your calendar this week. Find thirty minutes. Maybe forty-five. Give it to something that serves no purpose other than bringing you a little light. Bake bread. Dance in your living room. Stare at the clouds. Do something that makes no sense to anyone else. And when someone asks you what you’re doing, smile and say, 'I’m just being.' Because in the end, that is all we really are. We are not our jobs. We are not our bank accounts. We are the sum of our loves, our curiosities, and our quiet moments of grace. And sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is invest your time in something that costs you nothing and gives you everything. Thank you for letting me into your space today. I hope you go gently with yourself this week. Remember, you don’t have to earn your rest. You just have to take it. Until next time, I’m Marissa Davidson, and I’ll be here, waiting for you in the quiet. Take care.