the struggle to find a hobby
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You know, I've always struggled with finding hobbies. Ever since I was a kid, I remember being so jealous of the kids who seemed to just find their hobbies effortlessly.

Almost as though their hobbies just fell into their lap. You know, like the kids who got put into soccer camp when they were four years old. And then by 14 years old, they were soccer prodigies. Or the kids who started painting and doodling at age two. And then by age 12 were being entered into art competitions. Or the kids who were obsessed with bugs starting at age three. And now at age 15 are working at an internship at a bug scientist company.

lab making paper mache replicas of bugs. Like I've always just felt like hobbies come easily to everybody but me.

And I am aware that that's a bit extreme, a bit irrational, but that's always how I felt. I've had hobbies over the years that have stuck somewhat, but I have never really liked hobbies. Like even the hobbies that really have been satisfying and exciting for me have always come to some sort of tragic end eventually. I don't know. I just...

It was really hard growing up and watching my dad, somebody who is the king of hobbies. He is a painter. He's a surfer. He makes music. He's a photographer. He does woodworking and carpentry. This man is a walking hobby. That doesn't even make sense. But you get what I'm saying? He is the king of hobbies. And I remember feeling so jealous of him. Like,

How is he able to find so much fulfillment and excitement from these arguably pointless tasks? Like, I don't know. I always really just struggled with the concept of hobbies, always. In fact, to fully paint this picture for you, let me tell you about every single hobby I've ever had throughout my life, at least that I can remember. I briefly paused this episode to let you know that this episode of Anything Goes is presented by Temptations Cat Treats.

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Let me teach you. And let me tell you, the same thing would happen over and over and over again. We would have like a singing lesson or a guitar lesson or something, and it would start out inspired. I'd be like, yeah, let's fucking do this thing. You know, I'm going to sing Hey Soul Sister by Train. I'm going to hit all the notes and

you know, maybe we'll even record it and listen back to it. This is going to be great. Or, okay, it's time to learn guitar. Let's sit down and let's get going. Let's start strumming. I think playing guitar is going to be really satisfying. Mind you, this is at age like seven, eight, nine, 10, pretty young. Long story short, every time would start super inspired. I'd be super excited. And after like

15 to 20 minutes, I would get so frustrated that I would storm out of the kitchen where we were doing these music lessons and I would go in my room and slam the door because for some reason I got angry. Either because the guitar was too big for my little fingers to reach around and pluck and press on or the

the strings on the guitar were hurting my fingers. And of course I didn't have calluses because it was my first day of guitar practice. Or I would sing and I would feel like my dad like wasn't impressed enough with my singing voice. And I would get frustrated and walk out like whatever it was, I would end up frustrated. But then like a few weeks would go by and I'd be like, wait, no, let me try again. And I'd try again. And

And then the same thing would happen. I would get pissed off and frustrated for some reason, and I'd quit again. And this happened over and over and over again throughout my childhood. And eventually, I decided, number one, guitar is too hard. I'm never going to learn it. And number two, singing is way too embarrassing. I would never sing in front of anybody ever because that's embarrassing. So ultimately, music didn't work out for me, which is a bummer.

Because I wish I would have stuck with it. I love music. I have this deep yearning in my soul to just play instruments. And it's not too late. But if I would have started when I was a kid, can you imagine? I would be Sabrina Carpenter Jr. You know what I mean? I would be out there singing and twirling around on stage. I don't know if I would have liked that, to be honest. But it could have happened.

if I would have stuck with it. But I got discouraged and I hated it. And then, you know, it only got worse when I got older. And I was like, and this is embarrassing. Like when I was a kid, it was like, this is too hard. And then it got worse when I got older because I was like, and all of this is cringe. I think all of this is cringe. Okay. So music didn't work out. I also tried a few different experimental sports. Okay. I tried figure skating. I tried karate. I

And I tried like a hip hop dance class all between the ages, I don't know, six and 12, probably, approximately. I did them all for varying lengths of time. Like I think I figure skated for like a year. I think I did karate for like two years, which is actually kind of long. I did hip hop dance for like five minutes, actually. I think I did like a one month class. Did I hate these activities? No. In fact...

you know, for two out of the three of them, I actually went over and over again for longer than a year, but I was never passionate about these things. Like I wasn't passionate about figure skating. I wasn't passionate about karate. Like it was cool and it was fun and I enjoyed it and I got a little bit better, but like it never clicked for me. I never got past the point of being a beginner where I was like, Oh wait, this is a, like, this is satisfying.

Whenever you start any new hobby, it's not going to be fun in the beginning. It's just not. You're going to be frustrated. You're going to be confused. You're not going to have the skills to fully participate in the hobby. Like, it sucks in the beginning.

Even me as a kid knew like figure skating and karate, like these things are not going to be fun for me in the beginning. Like I have to practice, you know, but it never got fun. It wasn't miserable, but it never got fun. So I ultimately quit those things too. I think I liked it. Like, I think I enjoyed it, but I didn't love it. And at a certain point when, when you've been doing something for like a year or two years and you don't love it yet, it's like, okay, I think we're good.

You know, I also went to sewing camp. This was inspired by my older cousins. I have two older cousins on my dad's side that when I was a kid were like my idols. I thought they were so cool. I still think that they're so cool. But when I was a kid, it was like, oh my God, they're so cool. I want to be just like them. They're three years older than me. They're so old and cool, you know? And I remember they went to this local sewing camp and showed me a bunch of the stuff that they, that

that they had sewn and I was just dumbfounded. I was like, I want to sew a pillow and like a skirt. Like that sounds awesome. So I begged my parents to sign me up and they did. And I did a one week sewing camp. I think it was during the summer when I was like probably eight. Like I was very young, which in retrospect is kind of impressive that they're like teaching eight year olds how to sew with sewing machines. Sewing machines are so scary. And

and so dangerous. Like you can really get injured with a sewing machine. And they just let us use them. I don't know. They trusted us. It's kind of beautiful. And I mean, I was totally fine. I remember I sewed a little skirt, a little pillow, and like a little pouch, literally exactly what they sewed. And I actually really loved it. Oh, and like a cross body bag too.

Yeah. A little cross body bag. At eight years old, I actually did stick with sewing for a little bit. I probably sewed like once a month, once every two months for like two years following that sewing camp. And luckily for me, my mom is incredible at sewing. And so she had a sewing machine and she would like help me set up the machine so I could sew. But like to

to be honest, I hit a wall with sewing because you can only sew simple things like pillows and little pouches and little skirts with like one little elastic band in it. Like you can only sew that type of stuff so much before it's like, okay, I have a lot of pillows and I have a lot of like little skirts and I have a lot of little pouches. Like I can't, I literally cannot add another one of these things to my collection. It's ridiculous. Like now I just have a junk drawer full

filled with junk that I'm sewing. Like I'm not sewing anything useful, right? Like it became this sort of stupid thing where I was like, okay, I can't justify this anymore. Even as like, I don't know what an eight or 10 year old. And when it came to like sewing actual garments, like shirts and pants, I was like,

I'm obviously not going to sew a pair of pants. I don't even know where to begin with that. And I wasn't motivated to do it. I didn't even know how to find, like, I didn't know to, you know, go online and buy patterns for making clothes, like that whole thing. It was like, it was just beyond my capacity as a 10 year old. And so I eventually gave up sewing because I had too many pillows and too many pouches. This episode is brought to you by Squarespace.

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And imagine if you were to take a needle and poke it over and over and over again. As you poke it, it starts to condense, like the fibers condense. And you can basically shape the wool, the big wool piece into something dense and smaller and shaped. And it's like making a little figurine. And then you can like take dyed fabric.

wool and you can needle felt color onto it. You know, like you do the base with like a, just like a basic beige color, like the natural color of the wool. And then you cover whatever your little shape is with colored wool and you needle felt that on. It's very, I don't know if I'm explaining it well, but you get the idea. I got into that for a minute. I think that was another thing that I copied from my cousins. Like they were doing that. And I was like,

Well, I want to do that. And then I made my mom go buy me a bunch of wool. And I actually got really into that. And I, I did that for probably over a year. Um, but the problem was it took too long. Like you're just poking this wool over and over and over again for so many hours and it just gets so boring and I, I just couldn't do it anymore.

And then it's like, if you try to like half pay attention, like let's say you were to like sit on the couch and needle felt and watch TV, you will poke yourself in the hand with the needle. And the needle is no joke. It's like sharp. So yeah, that didn't stick for me. It just, it took too long. It wasn't satisfying. Like I like being able to start and finish an art project ideally within one day. That's ideal for me. And a needle felting project would take like two weeks. I actually never tried needle

knitting because everybody that I knew that knit or crochet or whatever, it would take them so long to make anything. I was like, I don't even want to try. What else? You know, for a little while there, my mom and I were rock climbing and we actually kind of got into it. Like actually my mom wasn't ever rock climbing, but she learned how to do the like ropes from below. Cause like if you do rock climbing, like the rock climbing where you're like going really well, let

Let me tell you, I was going rock climbing in like a studio. Okay. I was not rock climbing in real life. Let's be clear. I think you know that, but I'm just clarifying just in case we were rock climbing in a facility where there were these fake rock climbing walls. They were not real. They were not natural. They were high up, but they were not real. Okay. And there were these harnesses with ropes that you were forced to put on if you were going to climb these really, really tall climbing walls.

And I don't remember how I got into it. I think my mom took me a few times because she just thought I would like it. And there were like some instructors there and they did the rope stuff with me. And then I really liked it. And I was like, well, mommy, can you learn how to do it? Like, can you learn how to do the ropes? And she learned. So then I could go as much as I wanted with my mom and she could do that for me. And we didn't have to like set it up with like a coach or whatever. Anyway, I really liked that for a little while. But once again, like I just got bored of it.

It was never like this huge, there was not a falling out with rock climbing. It wasn't like, oh, I hurt myself and now I don't want to go anymore. Or like, I found something else that I like better. It was just like, I just woke up one day and I was like, you know what? I don't think I'm ever going to go rock climbing again. And that's just how it is sometimes.

Next, I did gymnastics for a little bit. Again, at age like what? Was I eight? Was I 11? Like, I don't really remember. It doesn't really matter. I really liked gymnastics. It was really fun. I actually don't know why I quit. I really can't remember. I can't... Like, I might have quit because I started to get scared because like I was...

moving to the next level. And it scared me. I really don't know why I quit gymnastics. Honestly, I would have to call my mom. And to be honest, it's not that important, but I tried it. And I think I was afraid of it. That's my guess. Because gymnastics does get scary really quick. Like one day you're jumping on the trampoline and the next day you're like doing a flip around the bars. You know what I mean? It's kind of

a big jump, you know? And I think that might've frightened me. Either that or I didn't like my coach or something. Like, I don't know. Anyway, I quit gymnastics. That didn't last very long, maybe two years. Oh my God. This was one of my favorite hobbies. In fact, I might get back into this one day. I really loved this. Nail art.

Yeah. I became obsessed with nail art in middle school. Obsessed. Okay. So I used to like repaint my nails every other day and I would do a full design that I found on Pinterest. Like it was a whole thing. And there was nail polish all over the living room. Like it was, this was my lifestyle. Let me give you some design examples. Okay. I did cheetah print.

People think, oh, cheetah print, beige, browns. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. No. Have you ever heard of hot pink cheetah print? Paint the nails hot pink. Do a little do like little, you know, black squiggly lines and do like a little white dot in the center of the squiggly line. Suddenly you have cheetah print that is neon pink. Yeah. Yeah.

One day I did sort of like a little sunset on my nails. So I like painted my nails pink and then used a sponge that I stole from my mom and like sponged on orange and yellow and made the sunset. And then on one nail, I took a tiny little brush. I literally bought the tiny little brushes. Like I was so into this and I painted like a palm tree, like a

a black palm tree on my nails. So it looked like the outline of a palm tree. Like I was so into it and I was actually pretty good. I wasn't great. I wasn't great, but I was pretty good. And it became sort of known that I did nails probably because I was marketing my work. I did have an Instagram account called Emma Chamby Nails. I think it doesn't exist anymore. So don't get any ideas. You're not going to be able to find it. And it became known, oh, Emma does nails. So

So my friends started having me come over after school or after cheer practice or whatever. Cheer, that's a little foreshadowing for the next hobby. But anyway, and I would paint my friends' nails. Like I fully had a clientele. It was absolutely incredible. I think I ultimately gave this one up because you end up hitting a wall when you're a nail artist and you don't have professional training. You get to a point where you're like,

This actually doesn't look very good, you know, because manicures look really good, not just because of the application of polish. A manicure looks good because your cuticles got cleaned and your foot got scrubbed and your hands got scrubbed and you got lotion put on and then they put oil and then alcohol, sprayed alcohol. Like it's this whole process, okay? It's not just like putting on nail polish.

When you're at the nail salon, there's like a 90-step process that goes into a simple manicure. When you don't have proper training, all you're doing is just putting polish on and taking polish off. You know what I'm saying?

In addition to that, gel polish started to become a thing. And I was like, wait, I don't know how to put gel polish on myself. And I'd way rather have gel polish than regular nail polish because regular nail polish chips and, you know, takes forever to dry. Like, I want to try out gel polish or everybody was calling it shellac at the time. And I was like, you know what? I'm going to start going back to the salon. So...

I ultimately went back to the salon and I stopped doing nail art and it was kind of heartbreaking. I would honestly love to learn how to do nails, not only on myself, but also on others. Like I just love the art of nails. I've always loved it. But right now I have short little nails, short little nails with no art on them.

Next, we have one of the most successful hobbies I've ever had. And that was competitive cheerleading. I was a competitive cheerleader for like five, six years. Okay. That's pretty good for me. Every other hobby I just mentioned was max two years, if that. So five or six years cheerleading, pretty good. I started cheerleading because shocker, one of my cousins started doing cheerleading and it sucked.

looked so fun to me. She was showing me videos of her cheer team and like the stunts that they were doing. And then we would like try to do stunts with just us and like our other cousins. And I loved it. And I was like, I need to join a cheer team. So I ended up signing up and the

The first team that I was on was literally so bad. It's insane. I watched the videos from this cheerleading team. We were obviously the lowest level, but we were like lower than the lowest level. Like we were so bad, this first team. We went to competitions and got last every single time. It was insane how bad we were, but I got the bug. I got addicted to cheer. This was the first hobby for me that...

Like I, I really became passionate about, like I fully dedicated myself to cheerleading and I fucking loved it. When I first started, I had practiced, I think three days a week, you know, that's a decent commitment. And I,

I practice in the gym with my team and outside of the gym. Like I was practicing at home. I was like going out on my front lawn at my dad's house, like doing cartwheels, doing back walkovers, doing roundoffs, you know, trying to practice the splits to get more flexible. I was like, I am going to be a good cheerleader. And after a few years at this tiny little local cheerleading gym, um,

I got pretty good. You know, I could do backflips here and there and I got kind of good. And then I ended up ultimately moving to a more competitive cheerleading gym that actually required me to drive one hour to cheerleading practice because it was in a whole other town far away. Multiple times a week, I think four times a week. And the cheerleading gym that I went to was one of the best in the United States.

Yeah. And I was driving an hour to go there and I was not on the best team. That is for sure. I was on like a mid-level team and I never went higher than that, but I got really into it. Going to a gym an hour away from me, it's dedication. Also my parents, they

I also feel horrible for my parents. I don't know why they did that for me. I begged. I begged though. I begged. I've never begged harder for something in my life because I really love cheerleading. I loved it to the extent that like I was on Instagram and Twitter and I was following all the famous cheerleaders and I was like looking at updates about cheer team, like famous cheer teams all the time. And I was constantly stretching and practicing at home and I was...

Like I was obsessed. Like I lived and I breathed cheerleading. I loved it. But in high school, the passion started to fade. It just became too intense. I think like, you know, driving an hour to practice like four times a week and

training really hard and ultimately not improving that much. Like I wasn't improving that much. And it was starting to get to the point where I was like, okay, I have three or four more years left of my cheerleading career that like I can like even legally participate in. Cause like the cutoff for cheerleading competitive is for the most part, 18. There's some competition cheerleading that you can do after 18, but not as much. I was like, I'm not going to get that much better in three or four years. Um,

And I'm dedicating a lot of my time to this. My body hurts because I'm training so hard. I want to go to a good college one day. I didn't, spoiler alert, but like I want to go to a good college one day and I'm focusing so much time on cheerleading. I don't have time for school. I should probably quit.

And then I was doing high school cheerleading a little bit there, even though I got kicked off the team. But then they put me back on the team a little bit. And I was like, oh, okay, maybe I'm going to be back on the team. And then my first performance back with my high school team, I broke my hand. And then it was like, fuck it. I'm just done. I'm done with cheerleading. I'm done. It's ruining my body. My back hurts. Now my hand is broken. I'm just done. And I don't regret quitting. I don't. Because I think I ultimately had to quit. I wasn't ever going to be at the level that I dreamed of being at. And...

To me, like the hard work wasn't worth it unless I got to that point. So I gave up, but I still absolutely love cheerleading. And sometimes I go on YouTube and watch cheerleading competition performances and that's weird, but I do it. Okay. Another hobby. This one started, I think in high school running. After cheerleading, I was like, what am I going to do with my time? And I wanted to try another school sport. So I tried cross country and track and

And let me tell you, it was miserable, okay? I absolutely hated running.

I hated it. I literally... Oh my God, I hated it. But to me, it felt like a sport that I could just jump into and get decent at quickly because unlike something like lacrosse or soccer, you need years of experience to know how to navigate the ball, to truly be able to multitask in the way that soccer, lacrosse, these sort of ball sports require. It just...

It's not beginner friendly. Whereas running, everybody knows how to run. Everybody's run before. You know, when I was a cheerleader, I used to run. We were forced to run like

two miles twice a week outside of practice. And then we had to send a screenshot to our coach that we did it. So like I had run before, you know, I'd been running. So it felt like something I could do anyway. I've, I absolutely hated it. I was so slow, especially at cross country. Cause that's like long distance running, you know, at our cross country meets, we were running two miles, three miles, four miles. I was always in last place in JV.

I am not a long distance runner. Track was better for me. And they actually put me in hurdles, which I really liked. That was kind of good for me because I was flexible for being a cheerleader. So it was like kind of fun. Like I did each for one season. Okay, I did cross country for one season. I did track for one season. And it just didn't stick for me. Not only was I so bad at it, it wasn't fun either. You don't have to be good at something to enjoy doing it. Amen. Amen to that. But see, the problem with running was...

and specifically running as a sport, you know, cross country and track. I wasn't good at it and it wasn't fun. So it was like, okay, we're done. So I ended up never doing that again, but I actually continued running

running as a hobby on and off up until recently. I've gone through running phases time and time again since high school, and it's never fully stuck. I've had good, decent chunks of time where I've been running really consistently, but I wouldn't say it's ever fully stuck. And can I tell you something? I've never fully enjoyed it. The thing that I have always loved about running is how I feel afterwards. I feel incredible afterwards. But while I'm running,

I'm miserable. And I've never experienced runner's high. I thought a few times I did, but then my back and legs just didn't hurt for a second. And I thought I had runner's high. Running hurts. I hate it, to be honest. I really hate it. As you can tell, I'm not in a running phase right now because I'm speaking negatively about it. For whatever reason, there are times in my life...

when I really enjoy it, or I convince myself that I really enjoy it. And it becomes a part of my routine. And I might even recommend to people, oh my God, you should start jogging. You should give it a try. I'm into it right now. But in retrospect, I think because I've found forms of exercise that I prefer, I look at running and I'm like, you never liked that, idiot.

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Start your free trial at squarespace.com. And when you're ready, use squarespace.com slash Emma for 10% off your first website or domain. Now let's get back to the episode. Okay, now we get to the kicker. The next hobby I got into was making YouTube videos. Now this one did work out for me.

It started out as a hobby to keep me busy during one summer. I just was in a dark place in my life. My dad was like, you need a hobby. You should make YouTube videos. You watch YouTube videos all day long and all the time, almost like that is your hobby. Maybe your hobby should be making YouTube videos instead of watching them. Maybe that would be good for you.

So I started making YouTube videos and I liked everything about it. I liked filming it. I liked editing it. The whole thing was a great hobby for me. Now, here's where things got a little bit complicated. My hobby became my job very quickly.

Nobody wants to hear a fucking person whining about how their hobby became their job because in a lot of ways, that's the dream. You can get paid to do something that you would do for free. However, for some reason, when your hobby becomes your job, it changes the way you feel about the hobby. This is a very common experience.

And I do think that there's a way to experience hobby-like joy from your career. But, you know, a few years in to your hobby being your career, you're like,

wait a minute, I hate this now. Now this just feels like a job. And again, it sounds whiny and it sounds ungrateful and it sounds, it sounds sort of ridiculous, but I've experienced this and everybody that I know whose hobby has turned into their career agrees with me. It's this, like, it's this cursed sort of thing that happens where everybody

sort of the impossible happens. A hobby that you loved so much turns sour for you. And I think that there is a way, again, I think that there is a way to turn it back around, but I think it's almost inevitable that at a certain point in your career, it gets complicated.

And so that has definitely happened to me with making YouTube videos. It started out as a hobby. It very quickly became a job. And that was actually okay with me for a little bit. But then I started to put all this pressure on myself to like...

put out as many videos as possible. And the pressure started to get to me and I experienced a lot of creative block and a lot of burnout from pushing myself too hard. And then I started to become more known publicly, not even that famous, but to me, I felt kind of famous all of a sudden. And I was like, okay. And then that came with its own slew of complications. And then the

That made me afraid of posting YouTube videos because I was like, oh my God, I don't even want to be perceived anymore. I'm afraid. I won't go into it into too much detail, but that hobby became very complicated very quickly for a number of reasons. And it is still a hobby of mine.

I still love video creation. I will never stop loving that, but it's been very challenging to get back to a healthy place with it. It's brought a lot of complication, a lot of intense emotions. There's been a lot to handle on this journey and it's made it very hard for me

to sometimes participate in this hobby that I truly do love. There's been a lot of other variables that have complicated it because it became my career. But I will say that that is a hobby that has stuck. And it's one of the first ones that's ever stuck for this long. Like I've been making videos for what, seven years? And I don't make them as consistently anymore. But that is actually my longest standing hobby of all time. But again, like

going back to what I said in the beginning of this episode, I have always struggled with hobbies, even though this is my longest standing hobby and I love it still. It has been a journey.

It's like, this was my hobby. Now it's my job. Now it's stressing me out. Now I'm burnt out. Now I'm scared. Now everybody, now people are talking about me. Now everybody, oh my God, now I don't want anyone to see me. I don't want to show myself. I just want to be in private, but I can't because I'm making videos and people are seeing them. Like it became this mess. So this is sort of,

what I mean by I'm not good at hobbies. You know, like even my best hobby, my most successful hobby has been incredibly complicated. It also became my career that I am immensely grateful for. So I have no regrets, but I'm just, I'm just painting this picture for you.

Anyway, moving on. A few years ago, I tried to learn to play drums because my dad bought a drum kit and put it in my childhood bedroom. And I went home for the holidays one year and I was like, what is this? And he was like, you need to try to play it. It's so fun. I need to play drums. Like, what are you talking about? Like, why are they in my room? What's happening? And he taught me a few little drum beats. And I was like, wait, this is actually really fun. And I really enjoyed it.

And I ultimately decided to buy myself a drum kit because I loved it so much. And I was having my dad send me drum beats so that I could learn them. I don't even know if that's the technical term, like a drum beat, like a pattern, like a drum pattern, which would maybe just...

make me better at playing drums. So then if I wanted to copy a song or something or learn to play with a song, it would maybe be easier. Anyway, I hit a wall with the drums. I hit a wall with the drums because eventually it got to a point where my dad's like, I don't really have any more drum beats to send you. You already kind of know all the basic ones. You should just start playing with music. So I started playing with music, but then that got too hard. I couldn't keep up with music. And

So then I was like, huh, okay, well, maybe I could find like some tutorials online that are a little bit more advanced than what my dad's teaching me. But I could never really find any good tutorials. And it was just like it. Anyway, I ended up quitting. I was like, fuck this. I still have a drum kit. I still sit down and play with it sometimes. I have a lot of musical people in my life who love to sit down at that drum kit. It gets used.

but not as much by me. And it makes me sad because I really love the feeling of playing drums, but like, there's just, I don't know the effective way to learn. And maybe I'm just not trying hard enough. And that could be true. Maybe I don't care deeply enough to figure it out. That's probably the case. I think if I really wanted to, I would, but for some reason, I'm just like, you know, so I ultimately quit.

And the same thing sort of happened with rock climbing. Okay. As you might remember, I was rock climbing a lot as a kid. Recently, I was like, you know what? That kind of sounds fun. I'm going to try rock climbing again. And then a few months ago, I went rock climbing again. And I was like, wait, this is awesome. And I had a really good time. Like, I remember doing it and being like, I'm going to do this again. And...

The last time I went rock climbing was I think last weekend. And I was like, I am never doing this again. I'm not having fun at all. I think the reason why I enjoyed the rock climbing on day one of my rock climbing revival was because it was new. I hadn't done it in so long that it was like a novelty because I hadn't done it. Every time I went back, it got more and more miserable until I just hated it and decided I'd never go back again.

And it's a shame because I bought a really like huge thing of climbing chalk for your hands and

Yeah. And now I'm not going to be going back. I actually hate it. Like I actually really despise it. And I didn't have fun. Anyway, another hobby phase that I've been through time and time again, cooking. Wow. When I was a teenager, I got into cooking a little bit, mainly baking. I was baking a lot of like little cookies and stuff that were healthy. Like my mom and I were really into making healthy recipes. Yeah.

healthy cookies that were made with like nuts and maple syrup. And it was kind of beautiful and very tasty. And I remember really enjoying it and finding it therapeutic. And then I sort of got sick of it. And like, I don't know, my career sort of took off and I like moved to LA and I was like...

ordering food delivery for every single meal and then forgot cooking existed. And then eventually got to a point where I was like, this is an unsustainable lifestyle and it's ridiculous that I'm ordering food delivery for every single meal. This has to end. So eventually I started getting back into cooking again. And then on and off over the last few years, I've had these cooking phases where

I think the challenge with cooking for me is, number one, it is a lot of work. Doing the shopping, you know, grooming and cleaning your produce, storing everything, being smart and tactful about what you buy and how much of it you buy is

and like when its expiration date is so that you can minimize food waste, like managing all of these different things, also finding recipes that you like, doing research to find those recipes. Like it is such a time consuming process. And to be quite honest, I can't justify making time for it all the time. Like when I'm in a phase where my workload is pretty low, things are pretty chill. Like, I don't know, I got time to spare. I'll cook. But a lot of times it's like,

I don't have time to cook. Now, when I say cook, I mean cooking things from scratch. I only eat out on the weekends. That's sort of my rule because I had gotten back into a routine of food delivery again. And then I ended up drawing the line. I was like, no, we're only doing food delivery now.

on weekends, during the week, food has to be cooked by hand. Does it need to be from scratch? No. If I want to put a frozen pizza in the oven, if I want to fry up a veggie burger and toast up some buns, if I want to make...

pasta with sauce from a jar, that's what I have to eat. But that's not cooking. Like that's not cooking as a hobby. That's like cooking for survival. It's a hobby when you're, you know, going to the farmer's market and you're picking out produce and then you're finding a recipe and you read the reviews of the recipe and then you, you know, set up your menu for the whole week. So like

you know what you're going to cook that week and you buy all the right stuff. And then you have a plan and everything's planned out and there's, you know, minimal food waste because you planned well. And it's like this whole beautiful sort of system that you got going on. That is when it's a hobby. And I just, I don't have the time for that all the time. Listen, if I really wanted to make time for that, I could, right? But there are other things that are more important to me than that.

But I love cooking. That's what's so sad. I really love cooking and I love food science. Like I have watched so many cooking videos. It's unbelievable. I have so much cooking knowledge. I know more than the average person about cooking and yet I don't cook as a hobby. It's very weird. But again, it's just like I've never been able to fully embrace it as a hobby because it's too much work and I can't justify how time consuming it is.

And last but not least, art, paintings, drawings. My dad is an oil painter and has been for as long as I can remember. And it's always brought him so much joy to paint. And I've always wanted to experience just a sliver of that joy. And throughout my life, I've really tried to enjoy it. Okay.

I've oil painted with my dad. I've taken art classes at school. I've played with pastels. I've played with colored pencils. I've played with charcoal. I've played with, I have tried to enjoy the creation of art, of this type of art my entire life. And I've always felt uninspired.

uninspired, directionless, and ultimately miserable. I've never enjoyed making art. I've never enjoyed it. And it's always really bothered me because I always really wanted to enjoy it. And like a few years ago, I kind of got into like watercoloring and it was sort of soothing, but it's just never stuck for me.

Until recently. In fact, not just art has stuck for me, but many hobbies have started to stick for me. It's fascinating. Don't get me wrong. There were a few hobbies that really stuck for me and really worked for me for like, you know, a handful of years.

YouTube and cheerleading being the main two. But more slow, simple, soothing hobbies, I just couldn't justify spending time on these things. It often felt like...

too unnecessary for me to continue spending more time on them. Like I would get to a point with almost all of these hobbies, like I'm wasting my time. Like I just need to give up. I also really struggled with getting past the initial stage when I was really terrible at something. Like it was really hard for me to get past the beginner stage with a lot of the hobbies that I had experimented with. And

And I also think, too, in retrospect, I attempted a lot of hobbies for the wrong reasons, because they were bringing joy to other people, because I thought it would make me look cool if I participated. I was running into a lot of the same issues over and over and over again. It was rarely working out. And now, for some reason, I don't know what has happened, but

but finally I feel like hobbies are clicking. And a lot of the old hobbies that I tried long ago are now finally clicking for me. And I'm like, wait, I'm actually finding joy from these things. And here's how I think I got here. Okay. Number one, sobriety. In October, I went sober. I stopped drinking alcohol. I have a suspicion that I have an alcohol intolerance and I haven't drank since.

I feel really good, but it's also been incredibly boring. Being sober is boring. Okay. I used to love going and getting a glass of wine on a Friday. I used to love getting drunk on a summer day with my friends in my backyard, just spending a whole day just drunk. I used to love that. And that all went away. And for a few months I was like, oh my God, I'm so bored.

I don't know what to do with all this time that I have now that I'm not drinking alcohol. Drinking alcohol used to just make hours disappear. And the stuff that used to be fun with alcohol is now no longer fun. Going and sitting at a bar is not fun when you're sober.

Going to a day party, it's way less fun. Anyway, when you're not drinking alcohol, you are forced to entertain yourself in more classic sort of ways. Actually, alcohol is arguably classic. It's been around for a long time. But in more...

wholesome sort of ways. Eventually, I got so bored that I was like, wait, maybe I'll draw something. Maybe I'll do an extra yoga class. Or maybe I'll start playing guitar. All the free time that I used to put towards drinking and hanging out drunk...

Now, I put towards hobbies because that's kind of my only option, which leads me to my next time suck that I used to indulge in far too frequently, emotional crutches and addictions. I used to spend so much time shopping, obsessing over toxic boys. What are my other emotional crutches? I don't know, like gossiping, talking shit. Like, I don't know. I used to really allow myself to indulge in emotional crutches and addictions.

A few months ago, I really cracked down on myself and I was like, we're not doing that anymore. We're done. No more toxic boys. No more excessive shopping. No more shopping addiction. You know, no more nicotine. Although like, listen, I still hit a vape every once in a while. I still hit a vape every once in a while. I'm working on that one. So that one's hard. I was doing really well and then I'm not doing very well right now. I've been hitting a vape every once in a while when I see it, when somebody has one around me. Just being honest, not proud of it.

But, you know, I really have cracked down on emotional crutches. I was wasting so much time and stunting my emotional development by allowing these things to distract me and numb my pain and give me a false sense of fulfillment.

And I crack down on them. And that's even more time I have available. I have no boy to be stressed out over. I have no shopping to do. What the hell am I going to do? That has also made hobbies feel more appealing because I'm so bored.

anything remotely stimulating sounds interesting to me now. And it's fascinating, but it's also like awesome. I've always wanted to find hobbies that are exciting to me. This is like a dream come true. And I never would have expected it to come this way through severe boredom and the elimination of a lot of normal, I don't know, like activities in life. Like

A lot of people drink and a lot of people go shopping a lot. And a lot of people doom scroll on their phone. And a lot of people date toxic people because it's kind of addicting. And a lot of people, you know what I mean? Like a lot of people participate in these activities and they also have hobbies. But for some reason, it wasn't until I eliminated all of those things that I could fully find the attention and the time and the space to

to participate in these hobbies. And I really do think that those are the main life changes that have led to me being able to participate in hobbies. But I do think that there are a few other, maybe less significant, but still notable shifts that have led to this. Like, I think I used to try to force myself to participate in hobbies. Like, the voice in my head...

would say, Emma, you need to do this hobby right now because doing hobbies is good for you and you need to be good at something. Now I'm like, do whatever sounds fun. I don't care. I've taken the pressure off of myself. I now choose the hobbies that I participate in more intuitively. So like, for example, let's use cooking as an example. If I really don't want to cook and I'd rather just, you know, throw something together with a few pre-made things, I'm

okay, I'll do that. And it's no big deal. If I really don't want to go to yoga class and I'd rather sit down and paint something, I'll do that. Like it's fine. You know what I'm saying? I used to be very harsh with myself. And I even sort of spoke in that way earlier when I was talking about cooking, how like

I've never fully been able to make cooking a hobby because I've never been able to do it routinely. Well, I've sort of changed my perspective now where I'm like, I don't need to do something all the time for it to be my hobby. Like if I can do it whenever I want. Hobbies are not supposed to be chores. They're supposed to be enjoyable.

And weirdly, by not forcing myself to do certain hobbies, it makes me want to do them more. I also think too, removing the expectation that I'll ever be good at these things and strictly doing them because they're enjoyable. I don't ever need to be a chef. I don't ever need to be a professional artist. I don't ever need to be a professional musician. I don't ever need to be a

a professional yoga teacher. I just need to enjoy doing the hobbies I enjoy doing. And I think subconsciously without me even realizing it, when I was younger, I really wanted to be good at my hobbies. And I really wanted to be consistent and get really good at these things. And I've realized that pressure makes me want to participate in these things even less. This is an ad by BetterHelp.

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I also think too that it's really hard to participate in hobbies unless you feel productive in your work life. And for so long, it felt like work was constantly piling up for me until recently when I got ahead and removed that pressure. Now it's like...

Like, wait, I don't feel like I need to constantly be working to stay on schedule to meet the deadlines I need to meet. I'm so far ahead now. So I can actually justify taking time to cook a meal from scratch or draw something. I can have a better work-life balance and I don't feel guilty about it. Because I think for a long time, I was like, any free time that I have should be dedicated towards getting more work done.

That is made worse when your career is your hobby. There's no, like, why would I go do a hobby that isn't ultimately benefiting my career? I need to do the hobby that is benefiting my career. That's the hobby I need to be focusing on. Why would I waste my time doing any other hobby? And last but not least, I think,

I'm just more mature and more patient. It was harder for me to enjoy hobbies as a kid because I was impatient. I wanted to be good at everything immediately. I got frustrated easily. And I think with age and wisdom comes the ability to truly enjoy slow, arguably pointless activities.

I feel like I'm just drowning in so many hobbies that I love and enjoy. Like, for example, this summer I started making these little weird cartoons with pen and watercolor because my dad and I were on vacation and he, being a painter...

was painting every day on vacation with watercolors. He was painting and he was having so much fun. And I was like, all right, you know what? I'll give it a try too. And at first I was trying to paint like him. I was trying to paint landscapes and stuff like that. And then I was like, I fucking hate this. So then I just decided to make funny little cartoons. And then I was like...

wait, why didn't I do this sooner? This is fun. The reason why I never liked doing art before was because I was trying to copy the way that my dad does art. He paints the world around him. That doesn't work for me. I don't like that. That's not fun for me. That's boring. I like looking at photos of that. I love seeing my dad's paintings once they're finished. That's gorgeous. But I don't like to create that. These little cartoons, I love making them. Am I good at it? No. Is it hard for me? Yes. But

this clicked for me. I'm just absolutely obsessed with making these little cartoons. Number one, you know, I feel like I have the time to make them, but number two, it's intuitive. I genuinely enjoy making these.

I've also been, this is cringe, but I'm trying to learn guitar. And let me tell you, as an adult, it is so much easier than it was for me as a kid. As a kid, my fingers were hurting. I like couldn't remember the chords. I like barely even remembered the alphabet. How am I supposed to remember like what an A minor chord? Like, I don't know. It was just too much for me.

I'm really loving it as an adult. It is really fun. Listen, it's fucking hard. I don't care what anyone says. Guitar is hard. And it's just one of those things that you get older and you're like, oh my God, I shouldn't start this. There's so many people who did this when they were younger. It's way cooler. Yeah, it just feels cringe.

But it's not cringe. It's actually quite fun. And I really don't care about being good at it. I mean, it would be nice to like be able to maybe play a song one day, but I don't even care. It's just fun. And the fact that I'm enjoying it to me is like a miracle.

I also think when I was younger, I wanted to play instruments because I thought it would make me seem cooler or something. Whereas now I don't care about seeming cool. I mean, that's obviously the cherry on top, but I'm not as concerned about that. Like I'm not making my decision to learn to play guitar because I'm like, I want to be cool. Uh, I also recently got a button maker so I could make my own little buttons. Okay. I'm so excited. This is going to be a new hobby for me. I, I,

I just love this idea, button making, okay? Another hobby, yoga. I've been doing yoga for a very long time, but I never even thought of it as a hobby until recently when I was like, wait a minute, this is totally a hobby. I go to yoga multiple times a week,

I'm interested in getting better at it. I am getting better at it. Like this is totally a valid hobby. And for a long time I was like, no, like that's just me going to a workout class. No, that's a hobby. I also kind of realized like, wait, fashion is kind of a hobby for me. Putting together outfits, making mood boards, styling my friends. Like, I don't know, like...

Fashion is a hobby for me. And that was another one that like I've grown to sort of acknowledge my existing hobbies as well and give them a bit more credit. You know what came back around for me? Sewing. I actually can't believe it because I've gone through a few sewing phases. Every single one has been sort of a failure, but I recently got a craving to start sewing again. And it's been a joy.

Sewing was too hard for me as a kid because I just didn't have the prefrontal cortex for it yet. Now sewing is coming to me so much more easily. I don't know. It's just more fun. But also it goes hand in hand with fashion being a hobby of mine. Sewing makes sense for me now. It did not make sense for me as a kid. I've been loving it. I think what's allowed me to enjoy sewing the most, though, is my newfound sort of patience because...

because it is tedious and it is frustrating. You'll work really hard on something just to realize that you made a mistake and you have to seam rip everything and start over. It's very frustrating. It requires a lot of patience. And the very easy, simple alternative would just be to go buy something. You know, it's like so easy to not sew something from scratch. But I have sort of this newfound patience that makes me enjoy it. In

In fact, maybe I'll sew later. That kind of sounds appealing. Actually, it doesn't. I'm a little bit too tired for that. I have to have a good amount of energy to sew something. Like I have to start sewing something in the afternoon and be okay with spending the rest of the day doing it because it's very time consuming and taxing. So yeah, I love sewing.

And last but not least, cooking. Listen, am I really cooking as a hobby? Not fully because I still don't think that I cook enough. But when I do cook, it's a hobby. It's just not consistent. Like I'm playing guitar every day. I'm going to yoga multiple times a week. I'm participating in fashion all the time. The button making, it's kind of weird and it's definitely less consistent, but it's, it's,

a niche specific cool hobby that I participate in sometimes. You know, these cartoons, I'm making them all the time, every day. Did I already say that? I don't remember. But you get the idea. Like these things are, they make sense to call a hobby for me. Cook

I don't know if I can call it quite a hobby yet, but it is sometimes and hopefully more to come because hobbies are supposed to bring joy. And I can truly say that all of these things, whether I'm good at them or not, are currently bringing me immense joy, even if I'm horrible at them.

Even if I'm great at them, it doesn't matter because I am kind of good at yoga, I will say. But it doesn't matter because I'm able to find joy in them and it's so rewarding. And I guess the moral of this episode is if you're having a hard time finding hobbies that stick, it might be because you have some toxic shit going on that you need to remove from your life first. Or maybe you're just looking at hobbies in the wrong way. Maybe you're expecting too much out of them.

or you're choosing them for the wrong reasons. But it's worth figuring out how to find hobbies that you like, because they can bring a lot of joy.

And with that, I conclude this episode. Thank you all for listening and hanging out. It's always a pleasure. And if you enjoyed it, new episodes every Thursday and Sunday. Come hang out. You can find Anything Goes anywhere you stream podcasts. But for video, you got to go to YouTube and Spotify. Anything Goes is on social media at Anything Goes. I'm on social media at Emma Chamberlain. And my coffee company is at chamberlaincoffee.com, at Chamberlain Coffee, and at our cafe in Los Angeles. And in retail stores.

like Target and Whole Foods and Sprouts. Anyway, okay, I'll talk to you later. All right, bye.