In fact I think all people should have some kind of hobby or interest, come on what else is their to do with your time, other then being a full time wage slave and a part time coach potato. Anyway for now I am going to turn my attention to why employees should have a hobby or two.
The following quote from Ellen Hall nicely illustrates the pit full’s of employment or wage slavery, as she puts it,
“To be in a life situation where one experiences relentless demands by others, over which one has relatively little control, is to be at risk of poor health, physically as well as mentally. Under wage slavery/employment a relatively small elite demands and gets empowerment, self-actualisation, autonomy, and other work satisfactions that partially compensate for long hours.”
Victims of the 9 to 5
A major reason why every employee should have a hobby is, that in your 9 to 5 there is no need for any higher form of intelligence or creativity other, than what your job demands.
Too many people get court up in mundane, uninspiring, unchallenging jobs, this becomes a reality for far too many bright creative intelligent minds… that’s just crazy. People get jobs and invest so much time in return for money only to be dumbed down by the 9 to 5 routine of a mundane job, even when the person was originally gifted with the best of talents – what a waste!
Under stimulation of the mind to the point of turning off is a common complaint of many employees and graduates.
A large number of employees become dependent on the instructions and the OKs, of over authoritarian boss’s, supervisor and managers. Many of these minds lose the capacity to trust their own eyes and ears and become institutionalised… Only seeing the world through the lens of their institution. Many employees lose the ability of independent thought and balanced decisions making that is not ego based, which is often a reflection of the attitudes and behaviours of the leaders higher up the chain.
Mental boundaries
In the boundaries of the 9 to 5 the employees are simply the instruments of employers, instead of free agents directing their own thoughts and actions.
The problem lies in the fact the creative and intelligent mind, becomes stifled in a artificial system of control.
Roles of conduct dictate what you should think, how you should think it and when to think it. This artificial world is complete with its rank’s of gods demons and angle’s, of which you have got the power to be promoted too, if you play your cards right that is. If your a free thinking, creative human beings this is an unacceptable condition. As growth orientated person, am sure you’ll certainly discover greater rewards when you exercise full control of our own creative powers .
Adding some juice back into the mix ...
Brighten up your life by adding some colour and spice in to your routine. Take hold off your intellectual and creative fluids with hobbies. Hobbies are a great way to add some variation to the worn out routine of working, eating, sleeping, working some more and getting drunk at the end of the week. Break down institutional conditioning or at least to make your routine little less robotic and dull.
Hobbies are just Great…
For relieving stress and having fun, alone or with other people and excellent for networking, great for stimulating that gray matter.
Their’s been many studies stating that the stress of the modern day working routine is a major contributor to stress, ill heath, emotional problems and these stresses may be closely related to drug, alcohol, food and nicotine addictions.
The daily routine of employment…
has a major moulding effect on your character, the way you think, feel and the way you view the world. It makes no difference whether you’re packing shelves in a Supermarket or running a big City Law Firm. The institutions you spend time in will shape your character.
Anthony Robin’s – Peak Performance Executive often speaks of protecting you mind and exercising control over the direction in which your mind grows by choosing who and were you invest your time. If you have limited control over your working environment and the people you come into contact with, it’s a good idea to maximise positive the input coming into your mind by shaping what your mind is doing outside of your 9 to 5 with a hobbies. A Club such as Toastmaster international is good example of this principle, you can interact with people socially while developing your public speaking skills and confidence.
Institutional Conditioning
“Whatever does not spring from a man’s free choice, or is only the result of instruction and guidance, does not enter into his very nature; he does not perform it with truly human energies, but merely with mechanical exactness.” Wilhelm von Humboldt
Theirs a saying that, one who is constantly striving to force everything into a mechanical order, becomes a machine himself and loses all human feeling, which reminds me of a Supervisor I once worked with, “Scott” who was the model employee, he did everything by the book, So much so that he was dangerous…. ” Look out when Scott about “well that’s not his real name but that’s the name I will use for this article. He was a real jobs worth, he had spent eight years with the company and ate company politic for breakfast, lunch and dinner he was the walking incarnation of the staff hand book.
Scott had no life out side of work, he was like one of those Borg drones from Star Trek the Next Generation, it was like his mind had been assimilated, he had no free will just a programme implanted in his head that consisted of a company policy a collection of company targets and old reports which this guy had memorised just about ever sales report for each mouth of the year for about three years. Ask him any question about the company and he will pop out the answer like his head was connected to the company website via USP.
What an amazing mind...
it was a shame because at the time he wasn’t working for a large organisation or for his self were his amazing mental skills could be used and appreciated, or for his self were he could use his memory to learn new skills. He worked in a Department Store on Oxford St were his talent were more of a party trick. He lived to work – at the time his ambition was to make it to Manager. Before he could make it to Manager he had to learn how to communicate with his staff in order to get the promotion he longed for.
This was not possible He used his staff to earn him self brownie points, to making himself look good. He had stabbed so many people in the back, so to say, that he had lost the support of his team – no team, no promotion, as successful team make’s management look good. He was constantly watching his back behind his poker face he seems sacred, work was all he had, it seemed to be his whole life. His problem was a lack of outside interests. He needed to improve his social intelligence for a start by socialising and learning how to build a rapport with the people he worked with.
He also needed something to call his own, something to invest his time in, something that would give him a sense of personal fulfilment – which would ultimately reflect in his personality as confidence, competence and self-worth making him more relaxed and a better Manager of people.
Erosion of the Human Personality
Theirs no need for any higher level of intelligence in the rank and file, other than what your job description demands. Under the authority of employment the employees are the instruments of the employer, instead of free agents directing their own thought and actions.
Hobbies help you to go deeper
We as human being discover great rewards personally when we exercise control of our creative powers, the day job is a necessary evil, But the expression of your character is limited. On the other hand in your hobby you can find greater fulfilment and pleasure in expressing creative or your intellectual side, discovering what lies beneath the surface of you.
The Typical Employee
Let’s take a look at the stereotypical employee he /she may work 5 days a week, Monday to Friday, 9 to 5 with weekends off. The environment has a well defined hierarchy of staff, Supervisors, Managers, Directors and Shareholders. The majority of employees fit in somewhere between staff and manager. The employees agency or general behaviour is dictated by their job and rank. Sadly their is a connection between job title and person sense of self worth, in our society the job becomes a symbol of achievement.
Theirs an unspoken law that keeps employees in line and subordinate to these higher up the rank. You’ll find that people’s confidence and sense of fulfilment rises as they climb the corporate ladder – it does not matter if it is McDonalds or a Bank the people at the top of the ladder generally show a greater confidence and fulfilment then people at the bottom of the ladder.
Doing it with you Eyes Closed, Sleep Walking
People have a tendency to slip into a kind of unconsciousness when actions becomes automatic and routine, especially when a task is long and tedious, carrying out their duties with the mechanical exactness of a robot while the mind goes into day dream mode.
Employees often carry out the same routines daily with little variation, they don’t get to exercise any deeper level of thought and for employees, who do get to exercise some thought often repeat the same type of thought patterns as the day before. Take an IT Engineer for example, an iT Engineer needs to be able to problem solve when correcting faults.
Day after day…
they carry out the same job, running maintenance checks, which is pretty routine, installing new software up dates whenever they are available. When a problem, does arise say, the system freezes up, now its time for our technician to put his thinking cap on. Is the issue hardware or software related, if its software related he asks himself, have we got a virus, so our savvy engineer runs some extremely complex diagnostic system checks and finds a conflict in the programming, – problem solved! Its took our Tec savvy engineer three hours and a masters degree to solve the problem , now he can go back to sleep running routine system checks and up dates which he does with little thought.
Simply running on automatic.
When we leave are brains dormant or under stimulated for to long your mental power/abilities begin to slow down and deteriorate. As individuals we need to have varied mental as well as physical exercise to stay healthy and mentally fit. People need to have creative outlets to explore and express the full range of their human energies, which the work place does not offer.
Are all Hobbies Equal
Obviously not – different hobbies or activities will stimulate the gray matter in your head in different ways… See article Benefit of Hobbies for a better incite into this subject. Anyway if your hobby, lets say is to lock your self away in your room reading top shelve magazines, (of the xxx rated preview kind) obviously you will be stimulating what’s in your pants, rather than what’s in your head, as a personal development exercise its not the greatest value for money activity. A guy or girl who, lets say gets out their and does a bit of socialising at the local Dance Studio, Theatre or Speakers Club will be opening themselves up to a richer set of stimulus.
Hobbies can..
give you that much needed mental break away from your day job, enriching your day, week, or month and helping to break down or prevent institutional thinking. Getting you out there and socialising or doing some kind of creative work is your best guard against the erosion of your spontaneity and personality.
Think about it … Working in a closed environment has an ill effects on your creative and spontaneous genius, what do you think your mental state will be like after five, ten, fifteen years of doing the same job, how much would you have grown, will your level of fulfilment and job satisfaction have deepened!
Hobbies can feed and energise the spirit…
This energy can be seen as passion, enthusiasm, joy etc. It can make an individuals character shine and stand out. When an individual is engaged in their passions and I’m not talking about sex or eating, which is very enjoyable, rather I’m speaking about the passions that are grown out of creative mental, intellectual and physical expressions. It was out of these higher forms of expression, that modern civilisation was born and continues to grow creating great talents in all walks of life from musicians to athletes to architects.
The higher passions…
that come from the deepest regions of our humanity and raises our personal standards, becomes your gift to society, rewarding the world with culture unlike that which is found in a night club or some bar. All those products of the human creative imagination – farming, art, philosophy, technology, science, urban living, and symbolic culture were born out of our higher expressions and imagination.
Turning a Hobby into a Project
Having the right hobbies adds to the continued evolution and refinement an individual. To assume control of some kind of project or interest, in which to grow and achieve personal reward, is a great feeling, setting goals, reaping in your very own personal success, feeding that good old ego, heightening confidence and giving you a fabulous sense of achievement and self efficacy – To put it in one, hobby can be very up lifting and great fun. Again depending upon the hobby, it can be a good investment and could earn you bags off money.
Reaping in your investments from your hobby
I have a friend who’s hobby or interest is in the Stock Market it’s not the most exciting past time, but he says he really enjoys it, taking control of his own personal and financial evolution. Playing the Stock Market while applying what he has learnt from his casual reading, its great because his interest in the Stock Market started off from reading a book by Warren Buffet and now he is growing his portfolio – Good on you Junior.
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