I sometimes hear diatribes about “kids these days,” and how they are lazy, don’t respect their parents, and don’t have any manners, among other things. I think that such ranting is fallacious because it makes unfair generalizations about a group of people who are still learning about life.

However, I think that it is important to address one disturbing trend that I am noticing among a lot of my peers, and a trend that my father (an anthropology professor at Queens College-City University of New York) notices among a lot of his students: a lack of hobbies.

Hobbies are important because they help all of us get a reprieve from the stresses of everyday life. They give us an opportunity to relax after a long day of school or work. It’s the sort of thing that allows you to continue using your brain, albeit in a way that you find enjoyable and entertaining.

For example, my interest in weather forecasting requires me to use my brain in order to accurately forecast storms. At the same time, however, the weather forecasting does not feel as burdensome as a podcast I have due a few days from now.

Hobbies are a release from burdens instead of an addition to our burdens. Since a hobby is so beneficial, I am led to the following question: why do so many of us lack hobbies? I blame this on the heavy workloads of kids in school and adults in the workplace.

With kids, I oftentimes hear about, see, and experience personally how teachers sometimes give so much homework that no time is left for hobbies. For example, how can my brother possibly pursue an interest in drumming when he is given so much homework at school that he is left with little to no time to play the drums? How can a college student be expected to pursue an interest when he/she is pursuing a full course load and one or more jobs?

How can an adult who works multiple jobs be able to pursue much of anything outside of the jobs that he/she works? It is pretty difficult to maintain much in the way of hobbies if you deal with circumstances like these. No wonder so many people lack hobbies.

So, what is the solution to this lack of hobbies among some people? After all, it is not like anybody can make more time in a day so that people could pursue a hobby like weather forecasting, drumming, gardening, or anything else. It is also not as if I can tell a professor, “I was unable to do my reading for today…because I was busy forecasting a potential snowstorm.”

While we can’t ditch our busy lives in favor of a hobby, what we can do is take occasional breaks (5-10 minute breaks) from our work in order to pursue whatever hobbies we have. I did this when I was burdened with homework in grammar school; instead of plowing along with homework without any break, my mother told me to do some karate for 5-10 minutes.

I found that I was actually more productive after I pursued my hobby of karate than I was before I took a homework break for karate. Maybe other people would find the same thing, if they took short breaks in order to pursue a hobby.