For every person who has just lost their job that is happy about it, there is a person who is downright miserable. Everyone deals with loss differently. Some immediately jump into action mode and rigorously start churning out resumes and cover letters, attending job fairs, and going on weird interviews. Others take their newly found unemployment as a paid vacation (unless they don’t qualify for unemployment benefits because they quit or got fired) and spend time thinking about updating their resumes while relaxing, playing video games, or sleeping.
What the two types of unemployed people do have in common is at some point, they’re both going to get stir crazy, and they’re going to start desperately looking for something new to do. Then it’ll dawn on them that they have no middle ground between working hard and hardly working. The last time they remember spending their free time doing something enjoyable was ages ago, perhaps even as far back as college when there was more time to do things, and more energy to to them. But once working life began, all free time was used doing nothing, catching up on sleep, or running errands.
Now that there’s time to do things, what do they like to do? Pick their nose? Cook? Read? Sew? Hike? Take classes? Surf the internet? It becomes sort of mind boggling to realize what a loss one might be at when they actually try to fill eight hours a day with things to stay occupied. At the end of the day, there are still two types of unemployed people. Some will take their free time and run with it, enjoying every minute, and learning new things about themselves. Others will realize they’re better off fruitlessly searching for 40 hours of work during massive hiring freezes than to come to the scary conclusion that they have no hobbies.
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Thanks to your post, I finally came to the conclusion that I am one of those who have no hobbies. You’re right – it’s scary. All this time I was trying to find some ray of hope in a hopeless job market. I kept telling myself I would eventually get to my hobbies and leisure activities after I had landed a job. I recently picked up some part-time hours, and when I allowed myself to take a little break from the full-time hunt, I realized that there was absolutely nothing else for me to do. I’m so sad. How does one acquire a hobby?
I still haven’t figured out how to acquire hobbies just yet…
Thanks, man. That was really helpful.
I consider running errands hobbies now. Does that help? Or, sometimes I like to give myself a challenge like, “Where can I get the best burrito?” and then go on a burrito hunt. When unemployed, it doesn’t take much to be entertained…
Just buy a ukulele! (If you can afford it – they’re pretty cheap).
Or try to make up artwork from cutting up junk mail…