My son loves tinkering with cars ...
.... so he became an electrician. Great Choice!
Of course at first glance that seems like a terrible idea.
If you love cars you should become a mechanic, right???
Nope
Here's what my son told me :
Dad, I was thinking about my love of cars and becoming a mechanic. I thought about it a lot. In the end I figured that if I work with cars all day long it will be my job and work. I'll lose that love of vehicles in the monotony of everyday work. I want to keep loving my hobby so I'm going to choose a different career.
I think he is right
I love a few hobbies.
- Gaming
- Computers
- Walking and hiking
- Growing things
- Tinkering with food science.
I happily do them with no regard to whether I will ever get paid for it or not.
I have a profession
- I'm a Pharmacist
Which I would have no intention of doing if I wasn't paid for it. No volunteer work in the Pharmacy for me!.
One key to happiness in life is Balance
Making sure there is time for all the important things in life is huge!
- Time for family
- Time for self
- Time to work
- Time to play.
Juggling those things can be very challenging to be certain. There are only 24 hours in a day and giving everything the proper attention can be a daunting task.
However, juggling those things is Incredibly important for if any one of them is neglected then a sad life is almost assured.
- Too much work gives money....but no-one to spend the money on is empty.
- Too much time for self .... no time for others, is time that is empty.
- Too much play and not enough work ... no money to live!
- Too much time for family none for work or self ... too broke and too worn out.
How to find the time for everything?
I bet most people find that there are just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything. Personally I've found that "blurring the lines" between the different categories can really help!
What do I mean by that?
There is a time for work to be certain. But if you try to make it a little more fun it can add a little play to your day.
There is a time for work. But if you can add your family it can add a bit of family time into the day
There is a time for self. But perhaps you can add some "self" time to your work
There is a time for play. But if you can add a little money into it then perhaps it can be a little bit of fun work.
In short
You can categorize things at "work", "play", "family" and so on....but when you mix it all together then life can get a little better balanced.
Look at that guy up above. He is a member of the family. Time with him is important. Then again, walking him is a twice daily chore, certainly seems like work. But walking him is exercise and an excuse to smell the flowers and take pictures of sunsets and sunrises which is kind of a hobby. If I bring my children or wife along then it is family time. If I play coin hunt while walking him with my wife--family time, hobby time and making money all together. That's multitasking 😁
Adding fun to work....
Now my job as a Pharmacist can be overwhelming and stressful. Too much to do and too little time seems to be how things are. It was especially bad when I worked in the USA but it is still tough in Canada.
The only way that I've survived for 29 years as a Pharmacist is to change my mindset and attitude towards work.
Learning to keep a positive attitude was unbelievably important. After a few years I thought how could I possibly continue in such a stressful career! Then I changed my mindset to "I'll do my best, whatever comes, and try to make things a little more fun in any what I can".
WORK IS STILL WORK! That's never going to change. However, over time work became much less awful and I continued for almost 3 decades.
.....and work to fun
Adding work to fun has actually been better and easier than adding fun to work.
The challenge isn't making a little money while having fun. The challenge is to keep it fun while making money.
Just like I tried to add fun to every day at work, I have taken an approach to add a little money making to all my "fun tasks".
In that regard there are many things that I enjoy doing where I've actually ended up making some money.
What hobbies have I turned into money
1) Cellphones
I have loved cellphones for a very long time. Finding the best deal on phones used to be a passion of mine. Setting them up, getting them ready to go, finding the best apps and so on.
Source: Tracfone.com
At one point I found that Tracfone was selling phones incredibly cheap and by working their system I could be unlimited airtime for myself and cheap phones for other people.
I probably sold over 300 phones for a small profit each in the period of 2 years. Eventually the company caught onto what I was doing and banned me from buying more phones but it was a few thousand dollars and a lot of happy customers in the meantime.
2) Still Cellphones
Source: getmonero.org
Once I wasn't selling phones I still loved using them. That's when I found out I could mind cryptocurrency on them. I took 8 cheap phones and set them to work mining XMR Monero. Not super profitable but it was sure fun turning eight $5 cellphones (they were pretty bad) into about $500 worth of Monero using the Minergate software.
Alas...as cryptomining became popular the cellphones weren't powerful enough to make any money so I had to move on.
3) Computers
I've loved assembling and working on computers since way back in 1987 when I built my first 8086 DOS PC. I've been doing it ever since.
Source: oldcomputers.com
Mostly I just like finding the best parts, for the cheapest/most powerful build. Sharing those builds with other people who don't know much about computers has been great. Making a PC that is twice as powerful as what they find in a big box store for half the price...lots of fun for me.
Made a little money on it from other people. Then the chip shortage came with the cryptomining craze and no more computers to build for people.
4. Computers
Luckily for me I had 8 PC's in various stages of build and lots of leftover parts when the cryptomining craze came. I used my computer building skills to cobble together a number of PC's which would be happily mining Ethereum.
They were *terrible home computers and not very efficient mining PC's but they made me a few thousand dollars so I'm happy with the outcome and had fun doing it.
This is an image of the last of my mining PC's. It is just sitting without doing anything these days...but it is still a capable Windows PC if ever I needed one.
5) Plant sales
There are also a bunch of plants being raised in our house. The aloe vera plant is actually very popular in my town but few people own one. My wife's has grown huge and regular has little sprouts. We raise the sprouts and sell them once they reach full plant size.
6) Gaming!
I've loved card games since University and played Magic the Gathering while at University. Started way WAY back with the Beta cards and Arabian Nights.
I have each of the cards listed above and they are all selling for way WAY more than I ever bought them for.
Of course my love of card games led me to this gem based on hive.
7) Splinterlands
Getting paid to play games? What's not to like.
Of course Splinterlands got me into Blogging on Hive, Blogging on Actifit and more. Still my hobby made me money. Awesome.
8) Walking
Now I always have to walk the dog. Part hobby and part obligation.
Playing Coin hunt world is part hobby and part work. I've made over $3000 while walking the dog. I guess that's mixing work, exercise, family time and fun all together :)
....
The list could just keep going on and on though. I make money helping people with taxes because I love researching ways to legally keep from paying taxes.
I have made money from credit cards because I love sign-up bonuses and getting the absolute best deals on things.
I have made money from buying things on sale then reselling them on Amazon. I love bargain hunting and have made money from it for sure!.
But Hobbies should always be Hobbies. Not Work
But as my son said.
There are certain things you do because you love them. Other things you do because you MUST do them even if they aren't fun.
My work is just that....My work.
My hobbies are just that....My fun.
If I can make my work fun....great
If I can make my hobbies pay....great.
But when a hobby starts becoming work...time to take a step back and re-evaluate if its really worth it.
Thanks for reading