I Hope You Succeed, and I Hope You Keep it Yours

I have always loved a resolution—New Year’s or oth­er­wise. Something about stat­ing a goal, com­mit­ting to it, and (hope­ful­ly) achiev­ing it is the kind of self-sus­tain­ing, self-ful­fill­ing mag­ic that is so fun to know and cel­e­brate, in myself and oth­ers. I love hear­ing that oth­ers are reach­ing their goals, regard­less of what they are, because it’s amaz­ing in a world where you can do any­thing, you choose to do some­thing, and do it! 

I also have always loved a good hob­by. There have been so many, and I still do a lot of them—crochet, (short-lived knit­ting), make­up, at-home press-on nails, hik­ing, kayak­ing, disc golf, house­plant­i­ng, and read­ing. Some have stuck, some haven’t. Obviously, any­one who knows me knows that read­ing is some­thing that has nev­er left me. She is my always, through every sea­son and mood. But I digress. 

Lately, on social media, I have found myself on the side of book­tok, soft-liv­ing-tok, hob­by­tok, detach­ing-from-the-dig­i­tal-tok. This has been a real­ly reward­ing side of the inter­net, and it has been inter­est­ing to see so many peo­ple doing so many things:

• Reading goals—even goals to pair a fic­tion with a non­fic­tion book to more deeply under­stand topics.
• Exercise goals that are “soft” (I per­son­al­ly have a hard time with this term, but the idea is great), find­ing a form of exer­cise that isn’t high-inten­si­ty and high-stress.
• Seeking hob­bies that are offline—puzzles, crafting.
• Journaling, espe­cial­ly for self-reflec­tion and growth.
• Learning a new language.
• Even—my favorite—building an entire cur­ricu­lum around top­ics peo­ple are inter­est­ed in. 

Please take up a hob­by, please make it a habit, and chase your inter­ests! This is such a fun idea, and I am 100% on board. 

My pur­pose in writ­ing this, how­ev­er, is to offer unso­licit­ed advice (isn’t that what the inter­net is for, after all?).

It goes like this: I have quit every sin­gle hob­by I have ever tried to monetize.

We live in an era (and per­haps this is gen­er­a­tional) where­in someone’s hob­by or pas­sion becomes anoth­er income stream. Good at cro­chet­ing? Sell your prod­ucts! Love mak­ing press-ons? There’s an Etsy store just wait­ing to be opened with your talent! 

The case for mon­e­tiz­ing is seduc­tive: you’re already doing it, you love it, you’ve built a prac­tice of it, and it’s already a habit you turn to. And who doesn’t need more mon­ey? In this econ­o­my? The catch is, you ran to that hobby/practice for com­fort, for an escape, for self-growth. Monetizing a hob­by takes the joy out of it. Suddenly, you have a demand for it, orders to fill, prod­ucts to pack­age with a cute tie and card thank­ing your cus­tomers; you have a job. 

I hope you find a hob­by in 2026 that brings you com­fort, fun, whim­sy, and relief from the world we live in. And I hope, if at all pos­si­ble, you choose not to mon­e­tize it. To keep it safe. To keep it yours.