My Hobbies
A hobby can be described as a spare time recreational pursuit. People generally take up a hobby as it brings a certain sense of personal enjoyment and sustains the interest in the activity. It’s interesting to know how the word hobby originated. A hobby horse is a wooden or wicker work toy which can be ridden just like a real horse. From this came the expression- to ride ones hobby horse-which means to pursue a favourite pastime. (Everyone would like to be engaged in some kind of an activity for which he has a passion and this is mostly done during the leisure time.)
Hobbies help us to relax after a busy schedule at work or in the house. Hobbies are very personal because what may seem very interesting and compelling to some people may appear trivial or boring to the others. Hobbies can be broadly classified as collecting, ,games and sports, outdoors pursuits, performing arts and creative hobbies.
Collecting could mean acquiring something specific such as coins, stamps antiques, post cards and shells. Outdoor activities could range from trekking, canoeing, kayaking, water sports and snow sports. Many people find these activities an excellent medium of education through personal experience. Performing arts relate to dancing, singing, jugglery, magic and acting. When we talk of creative hobbies the list seems endless like wood work, needle work, clay modelling, pottery fashioning jewellery, paper craft, gardening, photography, scrap books, cooking, and interior decoration to name just some of them. What starts as a leisure time pursuit could sometimes become a profession too.
Sometimes you hear about people who take up bird watching, nature walks, having an aquarium or even scale modelling which means making replicas of real things on a smaller scale. The present day generation has taken to computer in such a big way that playing video games and online chatting have become favourite pastimes (with both the young and the old). Online reading too has attracted many net savvy people. You can read any book-fiction, poetry or travel without actually buying the book and that too at your own pace. The underlying emphasis here is that hobbies are creative and help to bring out the hidden talent in a person. A great way of unwinding and feeling a sense of contentment could be the best way to distress. All of us feel the stress and strain at sometime or the other and when these pressure points build up you really need to understand how to unwind. Take up a hobby just for fun and see what a world of good it does to you.
