Latest / She Survived: Stories of Courage, Recovery & Reinvention / Why Wasting Time on Useless Hobbies is Actually Brave | She Survived
Transcript
- I used to apologize for the hours I spent staring at a wall of clay, wondering if anyone would ever buy what I made. It wasn’t until I stopped asking for permission that I realized how loud my silence had been. Let’s talk about that tightness in your chest when you sit down to do something that doesn’t make money. You know the feeling. You pick up a sketchbook, or maybe you start weaving, or perhaps you’re just learning to play the flute badly. And immediately, a voice whispers: Is this worth it? Could you be doing something else? Maybe answering emails. Maybe cleaning the kitchen. Maybe scrolling through social media and pretending you’re being productive by watching other people live their lives. We are so trained to believe that time is only valuable if it converts into currency. If it doesn’t put food on the table, it’s wasted. But I want to tell you something that might feel radical today: there is profound courage in choosing beauty over utility. There is a fierce, quiet rebellion in spending an hour creating something that will never be sold. It’s not lazy. It’s not selfish. It’s actually one of the most honest things you can do with your life. I remember a winter in Chicago, years ago. The snow was piling up against the windows, gray and relentless. I had just left a corporate job that had chewed me up and spit me out. I was supposed to be 'finding my footing.' Instead, I bought a bag of cheap potter’s clay. I didn’t have a wheel. I didn’t have a kiln. I had a small table in my kitchen and my hands. For weeks, I just pinched pots. Small, lopsided bowls that collapsed under their own weight. I spent evenings shaping mud while the city outside felt like it was holding its breath. People asked me, Gloria, what are you making? And I’d say, nothing. Nothing sells. They looked at me with that pitying smile, the kind that says, You’re wasting your potential. But inside, something was cracking open. The clay didn’t care about my resume. It didn’t ask for metrics. It just waited for my touch. In those messy, useless hours, I wasn’t trying to fix my life. I was just letting my hands exist. And that was enough. heading: The Muscle of Hope So go ahead. Be useless for a while. Let the dust settle. You’ve earned the right to create without an audience. I’ll be here, listening, when you’re ready to share what grows from that soil. Until then, breathe into it. You are doing beautifully. Goodnight, my dear friend.