It was close to 6:00pm and my father had returned from the bank where he worked. I was about 10 years old. He often had something for me and my four siblings, however this time he had only a large brown envelope for all of us.
After a short while, which seemed hours, he sat us down and revealed the contents of the envelope. What fell out of the brown envelope were stamps; used stamps cut out or torn from other envelopes. There were stamps from many countries.
The excitement we had on our faces quickly turned to one of bewilderment, as we were not sure what to make of our father’s gift to us.
As these were the days before emails and the Internet, all correspondence with banks and other places of work were either by telegram or letters. As our father was working in an international bank in Singapore, the bank processed many letters and telegrams from all over the world. I suppose dad thought, with his access to the stamps, which would have otherwise been discarded, he could get us interested in collecting them.
Photo: Steven Pereira
That episode back in my childhood days, started me on a journey of stamp collecting, a collection I still have today. Admittedly while I have the stamps and the books, I have not been active on the collection for some years. I wonder therefore if I can still claim stamp collecting as a hobby?
Wikipedia defines a hobby as a regular activity that is done for enjoyment, typically during one's leisure time, not professionally and not for pay. Hobbies include collecting themed items and objects, engaging in creative and artistic pursuits, playing sports, or pursuing other amusements.
Looks like I’ve failed in the regular activity side of the hobby definition. Nevertheless, there have been many other hobbies I have pursued over the years, with the latest being this writing of inspirational essays, and setting up of this blog at www.frommydeskathome.com.
This pastime of writing meets all the points in the definition of a hobby. It is a regular activity and I enjoy doing it. I am not doing it as a profession and certainly not being paid to do this. It is creative and it provides me with much enjoyment and satisfaction.
I liked what Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook was reported to have said about hobbies. He said, “a hobby shows a prospective employer that you have passion and drive”. While it was a common question asked by recruiters in past years, it does not seem to be asked of job candidates these days.
In a study in 2014 by the British Psychological Society, published in the Journal of Occupational and Organisational Psychology, it was reported that those who engaged in creative hobbies outside of work demonstrated more positive work related traits like having better attitudes on the job and showed creativity when dealing with assigned projects.
Earlier research in Israel, published in the Journal of Leisure Research found that those who were undertaking creative hobbies were more satisfied with their jobs and had a lower likelihood of work burnout.
Photo: Wix Media
The hobby or leisure activity that you do must be something that you enjoy doing. Otherwise, it is not a hobby but a chore. Often hobbies exercise the mind and generates creativity. Such hobbies include pottery, playing a musical instrument, writing poetry, painting a portrait or scenery, woodwork or photography.
Can hobbies like stamp or coin collection, or collection of various artefacts, e.g. Marvel Comics, Elvis Presley and Star Wars memorabilia, Football or Baseball Cards be of benefit to the enthusiast?
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While there can be money to be made with certain collectibles, many hobbyists do so for the joy and satisfaction of just having these artefacts.
My children, when they were younger collected Pokémon character cards. They would read the cards, trade them and find ways to amuse themselves with them, especially when accompanied with the early craze of video games on Nintendo’s Game Boy.
One of my hobbies over the years had been the collection of souvenir teaspoons from the towns and cities I visited. On one family trip, which involved driving from Melbourne via Dubbo to Brisbane, a distance of over 1,700km which took us two days, we travelled through many country towns. I think I bought at least 5 different souvenir teaspoons on that trip. Of course not every town was big enough to have its own souvenir teaspoon, but that was the start of my hobby of teaspoon collection. Today I have over 100 spoons in my collection from cities around the world where I have been, or have been gifted souvenir teaspoons by friends.
I found taking them out of their boxes, cleaning them, categorizing them and just remembering where I got them from and the occasion of purchase, quite relaxing and contemplative. Some teaspoons were more elaborate than others, as each showed off the unique landmark or feature of its city.
We know that work-related challenges can often be stressful, not only with the tasks themselves but also to be continually at the ‘top of ones game’, in other words, performing at your best. The benefit of engaging in a hobby can help in reducing stress levels because what you are doing as a hobbyist is and should be what you love doing. With a hobby, you can take a break, stop working on an activity and put things away at any time. There is virtually no constrain if you wanted to continue working on a hobby activity all through the night.
Anything you enjoy doing should not create stress. ‘Bad’ stress only arises when you are having to do something that you are not happy doing. ‘Good’ stress on the other hand, called eustress, is a positive type of stress that makes you more excited about what you are doing.
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There are many working people, both executives and non-executives whose only focus is on the work they do; achieving Key Performance Indicators or KPIs or meeting project timelines. They may enjoy what they do, however hobbies and activities of leisure provide an opportunity to de-stress, unwind and mind-shift into another space of creativity and pleasure. It can also be a refreshing interval from the routine and the humdrum of work in the office or on the factory floor. Even playing chess, draughts or any board game during a lunch-time break can provide respite from a busy morning at the office. Many progressive companies acknowledge the need to provide such facilities and opportunities for their employees to unwind and recharge during the working day.
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Playing a sport, either team or individual sports is a good leisure activity which allows you to improve in self-confidence and self-esteem, both physically and mentally. Not to mention fitness and dexterity.
If you enjoy walking, cross-country running or riding, orienteering or an outdoor activity I discovered recently called geocaching, these are some ways of staying healthy and energized. Studies have shown that people who engage in outdoor leisure activities are happier and less bored in their lives. Now who doesn't want to be happy and less bored?
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Staying in good shape, helps with alleviating depression, helps with good sleep management and consequentially leads to a healthy lifestyle.
When I first arrived in Melbourne in 1980, one of the very first things I did was join the Albert Park Table Tennis Club. As I stayed in South Yarra, only a short drive away, visiting the Centre twice a week was a pleasant distraction from the work activities I was involved with. Such leisure activities and even hobbies like pottery, crocheting, choral singing and coin collection provides opportunities to meet new and like-minded people, as playing table tennis at club level allowed me to do. It is a great opportunity to form relationships, and when it involves people from the same household, such activities can strengthen family and partner relationships. Having parents and children involved in the same activities can also lead to stronger bonds in the household.
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Where a hobby involves anything culinary, the benefits are not only in learning new recipes to cook up, but if the result is a positive one, it can win-over a lover’s heart, or be feasted on around the dinner table with family and/or friends.
Growing your own fruits and vegetables, or planting roses, herbs or succulents in pots and having them displayed on your apartment balcony or cultivating tomatoes or cucumbers in the backyard or planting rows of potatoes, beans, strawberries and capsicums on a hobby farm, is a pleasurable and rewarding pastime. Just getting your hands into the potting mix, turning the soil and seeing young shoots poking above the earth or seeing new buds appear on a plum tree, is enough to take your mind away from the hustle and bustle of life.
Photo: Red Hill Farm Foods
There are many benefits to engaging in a hobby or leisure activity. Most activities can be enjoyed by young and old. In this high tech age, where there is almost every conceivable activity available on a mobile device app, it is good to be able to find a hobby that uses all of our human senses. To enjoy a well-balanced lifestyle and be in a state of well-being, it is very important to get involved in an activity you enjoy doing.
It is said that just as your body is nourished from food and exercise, your soul needs to be nourished as well. This can happen through creativity and spiritual practice alike. Doing something that leaves you feeling inspired and reenergized will help you apply those feelings to other areas of your life.
I can attest to the importance of connecting the body, mind and soul through the various activities I do. In as much as we strengthen our well-being with hobbies which involve physical exercise, or activities of creativity, there are hobbies which can also provide a spiritual recharge. The Australian Government website www.headtohealth.gov.au home page states “spirituality can be found in anything: painting, music, gardening, healing, or cooking, for instance”. However, I would also add to the list, in a spiritual context, activities like: prayer, reading of Scripture, meditation, singing hymns and spiritual songs, are all therapeutic hobbies for the soul.
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If you feel like you are on a tread-mill, with the endless list of things to do, irrespective if you enjoy it or not, as an executive or non-executive worker, university or high-school student you may need to find a pleasant and leisurely distraction from your ‘norm’. Picking up a hobby can be an inexpensive way of improving your mental, physical and spiritual well-being. Not to mention building stronger relationships, making new friends, learning new skills, exposing your creativity, seeing results from your handy-work and seeing new places and gaining new experiences. So if you don't have a hobby, what is your 'start-up' hobby or leisure activity going to be for this year? Perhaps it's a case of dusting off the old badminton or tennis racquet sitting in a cupboard in the garage.
You may be wondering, what happened to my stamp collection?
I moved house during the early part of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. The hard lockdown that followed provided me with the time and opportunity to sort out my old books and boxes of artefacts I had kept over the years. My stamp collection is now out of their boxes and are neatly arranged on my book shelf in my home office. I plan to go through each book and if needed, reclassify the collection and get them into some order. Once done I plan to share the collection with my three grand-sons, who will be about the same age as my siblings and I when our father emptied the large brown envelope of stamps. I might get the same bewildering look from them when I show them the books. I will be hoping that at least one of my grand-sons will continue looking after the collection, but more importantly pick-up the hobby of stamp collecting.
Photo: Steven Pereira
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