How does a hobby help?

If you do a quick Google search on the benefits of a hobby you will find most results suggesting that a hobby is a great stress buster. That is true, but that is not all there is to a hobby.

Around two years back I took a keen interest in photography, and ever since I have plunged myself fairly deep into the world of photography. I can safely say now, that photography is a hobby of mine that I pursue regularly and that I have invested a lot of energy into.

And how has it helped me over the last two years? It has definitely acted as a stress buster, but it has also helped in other ways. Every hobby will develop a certain skill-set in you and will require you to display certain behaviors. For example creativity is required for painting, patience for photography etc. These traits that you develop through your hobby can also help you elsewhere.

For me, with a particular interest in bird photography, I have found this hobby to be an art of trade-offs. If you set the camera's ISO high you can get a fast shutter speed but you also get more noise. If you open up the aperture wide you can let more light in but your depth of field narrows down. When you have been patiently waiting for a bird to appear, and it appears, you will get only a few seconds to react! What has this taught me? I have learnt that you can't leave all factors variable to the last minute; you need to make certain factors constant beforehand, know well the boundaries that it creates, and play with a manageable set of variables so that you can be quick and agile.

Hobbies that may be aligned to your professional career can have clear benefits. The creativity associated with painting as a hobby is naturally aligned with a creative job. A hobby of DIY electronic projects may help someone working in an engineering role. But more than technical skills I think you benefit most from the discipline and commitment you develop as part of pursuing your hobby. When it involves a cyclic process of learning and applying, you pick up the ability to extend that discipline to other areas, and I feel this is what one gains most from a hobby that can be used in one's professional career.

Shared here are a few of my favorite pictures that I shot in the last two years.

More of my pictures are at: vinayarun.wordpress.com