You don’t need a side hustle. You can just have a hobby.

By Caitlin Booth

Life can be pretty bloody exhausting sometimes. Between your job, personal grooming, social life and feeding yourself (ideally with something other than UberEats or pasta) there’s not a lot of time left for the simple pleasures.

Maybe you like to draw, it helps to clear your mind. Maybe you like to write poetry and people weep every time you share it (not a guarantee that it’s good… they might be tears of despair). Maybe you make the best bloody baked goods in the world.

You’re allowed to just enjoy the activity and revel in being good at it, pressure-free.

You don’t have to optimize your time and bolster your finances with your hobby.

Having an average job that you don’t hate and that pays the bills, with enough left over for your future and fun is totally fine. The reality is that starting your own business comes with risks. And adding financial pressures to activities that spark joy means you’re inviting Burnout over to dinner.

You might be able to serve Burnout the best baklava outside of Greece for dessert on a Friday night, but you don’t have to run out and start selling it at your local market the following morning.

That’s not to say, if you’re willing to take the risk and go all-in to turn your hobby or passion into a career you shouldn’t go for it. Or that you shouldn’t try to change your career path because you just straight up don’t enjoy your current job.

But you’re allowed to invest energy into something, well, just because.

Because money is going to bring you enough stress throughout your life, you don’t want to give it a seat at the table with your simple pleasures.