It’s been a long time since I did something just because it was fun. In college people talk to you about how your extra curriculars should be things that you could put on resumes. You’re supposed to do internships and volunteer in places that will boost your desirability to potential employers. Then once you graduate you need to find a job and especially in this day and age it’s hard to find something right out of college that will support you entirely. Thus emerged the concept of the “side hustle”.

Side hustles can look like anything from being a secret shopper to leaving reviews on the internet for money. Something that is going to be supplemental to your income and help you pay your bills. There have been a lot of articles coming out recently with titles like “how to make your hobbies your side hustles” and “do what you love for money”; these sound great until you realize that if you turn every single one of your hobbies into something that sustains your way of life, it stops being fun after a while.

I started cosplaying recently and for a couple months getting into it, I kept saying things like “if I gain a following, it will help me drive traffic to the blog” and “I can make money on the side making YouTube videos”. Those are both probably true but not the reason I wanted to cosplay. For some reason I felt the need to justify doing it by telling myself that it would be beneficial to me and my career in some way. I didn’t feel like just doing it because it was fun and I wanted to was enough of a reason, so I tried to integrate it into the new career I was making for myself.

I’m not sure how I got there, but for a hot minute, I felt like if I was going to do something, it needed to be beneficial to my financial situation in some way. Which is so silly, people should have hobbies and things they do just because they enjoy them. If the only thing you do is something that you’re obligated to do just to live, even if you like it, you can start to feel trapped and worn out. So, instead of trying to justify cosplaying as a stepping stone for my career, I just started doing it and it feels really good to do something just because I want to.

Since I took that first step I’ve been actively working to spend more time on things that I enjoy doing just because they make me happy; drawing, singing, reading, and spending time just hanging out. In a culture where everything is so “grind” focused and people brag about working 14 hour days and skipping out on sleep and spending time doing things just for fun to build what they are trying to build, I refuse to let myself get swept up in that. Burning myself out isn’t going to help me in the long run, it won’t make me happy, and I will just get stuck in a cycle of grinding everything I do into the ground until I don’t want to do it anymore. Not everything has to be a side hustle, you are allowed to have hobbies, and you shouldn’t feel bad about spending time doing those things.

This article was partly a message for anyone else who feels selfish when they take time to do something just because they enjoy it, but it was primarily just a self indulgent public statement so I can hold myself accountable for not running myself into the ground building the life I want. I, and everyone reading this, need to remember that our happiness is important, and doing something because it is going to make you happy and for no other reason, is justification enough.