Why I Turned My Hobby into a Job

...And why I'm doing it again.

Aug 01, 2024

A couple of years ago (almost to the date), I wrote this piece “I Wonder Why I Turned My Hobby into a Job”.

For a bit of context: At that point, I was doing really well with my copywriting business, but also feeling kinda burned out. I had a pretty decent roster of clients I enjoyed, but focusing all my energy into writing for clients left me feeling pretty depleted and lacking an outlet of my own…

These were my reflections — which still hold true today, and interestingly, I’m doing the same thing again now, with something else completely different.

Before I confuse you any further, I think it might be worth reading the original article, and then I’ll share my reflections on why I’m doing this again, 2 years down the road (you’d think I’d have learned my lesson!)

But anyway, here goes the original article:

I Wonder Why I Turned My Hobby into a Job

I was having this discussion with a dear friend recently. About how capitalism has killed the joy of having hobbies and doing things purely for the sheer enjoyment of it. These days, if you’re not turning your hobby into a side hustle or monetizing every waking moment you spend doing something other than scrolling endlessly on social media — you’re wasting your time.

I’m one of those people who turned my hobby into a job.

I started writing waaaaay back when. I’d always loved reading, and the teenage angst of secondary school encouraged me to start and maintain multiple blogs and online diaries. I wrote prose, poetry (badly), invented fictional stories that put me in the protagonist’s role, and wrote thousands – perhaps even millions – of words. There was no reason for it. I enjoyed writing and it was a creative outlet for me to process my thoughts, feelings, dissect interactions, concoct wild theories.

It didn’t matter that nobody read anything I wrote (except for a handful of close friends) – most of my ramblings and musings were captured in password-protected Diary-x blogs, and even more existed in a handful of even more secret blogs I never shared with anybody.

The joy was in the writing.

When I first started getting paid to write – it seemed natural, exciting.

This wonderful thing that I love doing is now going to pay my bills and support my lifestyle? Amazing!

You see, I’d grown up with all sorts of messaging that was out to convince me that – if do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life.

I was thrilled and over the moon. What could be better than this! Writing isn’t like working – it’ll be like getting paid for free.

Except if someone is paying you, there’s often all sorts of restrictions and rules about it. I wasn’t just getting paid to write, I was getting paid to write what they wanted. And that was often not anything I would write on my own.

Now, don’t get me wrong – I still enjoyed it. It was fun to learn about new topics and research the best ways to craft a headline and play with structure and organization…

But it was still work.

And over time, as I wrote more and more for different clients, I found myself not wanting to write for myself anymore.

What’s the point, I felt. I’m not getting paid to write for myself. I should work on the client’s project. I’m just too tired to write more after writing all day.

I’d still find time to write in my journal, but strange as it sounds, I often ran out of words.

Some of the joy of writing – had been lost.

More clients, more articles and blogs later (written for them, not for me) – I still feel like this. To be honest, I feel stuck. I feel like I want to write out everything that’s going on in my head to process, to examine, to read through for clarity, but the channel is blocked. I can’t find the energy or motivation to write for myself anymore – this is the first time I’m writing something for myself after a looooong time – and I’m doing this at the expense of writing an article for my client.

I wonder if there’s a way out of this. I wonder if there’s something else I could do that would pay the bills so that I can go back to writing just for the love of writing. At this point though, I’m not sure what that would even look like.

I’m taking comfort in the fact that it’s okay to pivot. That we’re not meant to do the one thing forever for the rest of our lives till we die. That I’m allowed to decide that what worked for me some time ago maybe isn’t working for me now. That I have the freedom to explore new options and try new things.

It’s a work in progress. And that’s okay.

So two years ago, burned out and blocked, I wrote that.

And it’s interesting to see where I am today, and how I feel about that perspective now.

Let’s take stock.

Copywriting work has dwindled to a trickle. I have one steady client (at half the workload I used to do for her), and the occasional one-off copywriting or editing project.

For the better part of the last year, I was trying to get a Transformational Travel Coaching business off the ground and I did have a couple of clients, but ultimately, I think my heart wasn’t quite in it so that’s kinda fizzled out.

I’ve picked up teaching English as a foreign language again. I don’t enjoy it, but it’s some sort of income and it’s not terrible — hey, I’ve got bills to pay and work is work, no shame in that.

AND finally, but most interestingly (for purposes of this article), a couple of months ago, I started a little food business here in my city in Mexico.

I started out doing cooking workshops teaching people to cook Asian dishes, and now, I’ve transitioned into some sort of dark kitchen — making food for takeaway/delivery only. I don’t think I’d go the route of actually opening a restaurant — it feels like too much by way of logistics and stuff.

It’s been an interesting journey, honestly. Even a year ago, this would have been unthinkable for me.

I mean, first off — for the longest time, I didn’t cook at all. I grew up watching my mum cook and helping her in the kitchen, chopping veggies and stirring pots of curry, and sauteeing onion and garlic, but I never cooked.

When I started traveling, I cooked some basic pasta dishes and rice and stir-fried veggies and stuff, but nothing extensive. For the most part, it was because I didn’t have access to a decent kitchen, but even when I lived in Costa Rica in an apartment with a semi-decent kitchen, I stuck to preparing pretty basic dishes.

Well, that’s not true. I once invited my friends in Costa Rica to have some rice and beef curry and it turned out pretty decently, I think. Oh and my landlady did comment “wow, you’re always cooking things!” but I think that was mostly because she didn’t want me using that much gas to cook lol.

In any case, I only started properly cooking when I moved to Mexico almost 4 years ago.

At first, it was mostly to share food that I love with my friends here. There are very few options for Asian food in my city. A couple of Chinese buffets, an instant ramen place (that makes awful ramen), a few sushi joints, and one Pakistani restaurant that closed down two years ago.

I wanted to give people a taste of what they were missing out on, so to speak. Eventually, after many compliments and many requests to teach people how to make this dish or the other (which I almost never did, to be honest) — at some point, I thought: fuck it, why not?

I mean, I enjoy cooking, I enjoy experimenting with food, I enjoy learning about new ingredients, I love making things from scratch, it delights me infinitely to see people enjoying the food I’ve made or their looks of surprise/joy/pleasure/appreciation when they take a bite and it’s not what they expected — in a good way.

I remember the first time I brought dumplings to the barter market. At first, people were hesitant about trying it, but then one person made the leap, and then the next, and then within 30 minutes, we had sold out of all the dumplings we’d brought.

The point is… I love sharing food with folks. And it’s not even about making money from it, even though that *is* a nice benefit.

Really, this kinda feels like it did when I got my first few writing jobs, all those years ago. The rush of exhilaration, the joy, the pleasure…

Sensing a pattern? So am I.

I don’t think it’s bad though. I don’t think it’s terrible that I’m making money from doing this thing that I love. Some of it does feel stressful and does feel like work, but a lot of it brings me all these positive feelings too.

And maybe what's important is not never feeling like you're working a day in your life because you love what you do so much, but instead, finding pleasure and joy and satisfaction in work that is worth doing — even if (and perhaps, especially when) it gets hard.

And just as important is not falling into the trap of overwork and burnout and prioritizing paid work over pleasure work.

As I reflect on my journey as a copywriter and now as someone who cooks, maybe what I’m realizing is that I need to stop myself from falling into that trap I did with my writing. I have to set up some boundaries and limits. Time to rest, time to play, time to find the joy in this thing that brings me joy.

And I think it might be easier this time round (famous last words, right?).

I mean, at the end of the day, I’ve still got to eat — and I’ll never stop experimenting with the food I make for myself.

Why I Turned My Hobby into a Job

...And why I'm doing it again.

I Wonder Why I Turned My Hobby into a Job

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