So, what do you do for fun? It's a question that tends to help us get to know someone far better than any "what do you do for living" or "what's your favorite television show" would. It's also a question I see people struggle to answer all the time.
Robert Putnam, author of Bowling Alone, helped us better understand why that might be. Through research, Putnam discovered a sweeping decline in civic engagement in the United States. From art communities to neighborhood book clubs, to yes, even bowling leagues, there has been a significantly rapid increase of “I’m too busy, maybe next week”s. Over a few generations, Americans have somehow misplaced their free time.
Consider this: maybe we aren’t all as busy as we think we are. Yes, we’ve done a pretty great job at convincing ourselves that we don’t have any time. There are certainly significant factors that have made us become “busier” than generations before us.
We’re spending longer hours at work (or school) than in years past. Because of smartphones and laptops, our work find its way home with us on our weekends. The free time that we do have becomes short sprints of checking social media on our phones, watching a “quick” episode of Game of Thrones, or skim-reading headlines of news articles on Twitter.
I challenge you to consolidate those short sprints into one single hour a week. Rip off that “I’m too busy” badge of honor, and find a few moments on any given Wednesday to get back into your proverbial bowling league. It’s proven that hobbies reduce stress, create more clarity at work, and tend to keep us in better physical health. They promote flow, get us into unlikely social circles, and to Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Colorado Richard Gabriel, they keep us sane.
In sitting down with Judge Gabriel, we were able to learn more about his own personal work-life balance, where his interests in the trumpet began, and how it kept his mind grounded during years of undergraduate and law school.
Here are some really interesting (and some just fun) links that we have been recently indulging in to learn more about hobbies and play.
At EXPLO, finding your hobby takes on many forms, exercises, and events. Just a few EXPLO experiences that encourage students to never stop playing include: