Share a hobby you’ve picked up recently — what got you into it?
Hobby, by definition, is an activity done regularly in leisure time for pleasure. Yet its meaning shifts from person to person. For some, work becomes hobby to the point of obsession—the workaholic. For others, hobby evolves into profession: the athlete, the chess grandmaster, the cyber competitor. And then there are those who surrender to vices, trading pleasure for poison until hobby curdles into habit.
Whether work becomes hobby or hobby becomes work, the common thread is relentless pursuit of a personal goal. But when that pursuit fails, some veer into self-destruction.
Thankfully, that path is not mine. I inhabit both worlds: workaholic by nature, volunteer by choice, and committed blogger by passion. Both streams converge towards one goal—to live purposefully, in reverent awe of the Almighty God. It has been His blessing that I enjoyed my lifelong career then, and that I now find such joy in volunteer work.
In recent months, I’ve taken to writing lived experiences—my own and those who cross my path—and sharing them with a global audience through my blog. Through such sharing, we learn, grow, and walk farther, healthier, and happier together. I’ve stopped separating the sacred from the daily. To me, fruitfulness means simply this: to do everything in spirit and in truth.
So I ask you—is your hobby merely leisure’s pleasure? Or does it reach for something beyond the ticking clock?
Perhaps this poem offers a different lens—one that sees a hobby not as a pastime, but as an anchor that holds beyond time itself.
—✨
“The Hobby That Anchors”
When years grow heavy, hearts seek something to hold—
for fear of the hollow that comes with growing old.
But those who found their anchor early on
walk through age with a light not easily gone.
The way of life is not the way we live—
yet shapes each breath we choose to take or give.
Life is eternal, vast and without end;
living, but seasons that rise and bend.
We search for hobbies to tether the soul—
on earth we find them, broken or whole.
Some till the soil with sweat for bread;
some tend the earth when the race is sped.
Bitter or sweet—what does it matter,
so long as the pulse continues to scatter
its rhythm through days that come and go?
But eternal joy or eternal woe—
that is decided by how we sow,
in this short life we briefly know.
—✨
en yan hua fang 