WHAT MAKES A GOOD HOBBY?

What is a good hobby? It must be something you like, not something somebody else suggests you ought to like. What may be an excellent hobby for one person may be wrong for somebody else. It must be worth doing. Mere wasting of time by going through the motions of some useless activity does not constitute a good hobby. A good hobby must do the following things:

* It must help you relax and put your problems into the background for the time being.

* It must give real satisfaction in the activity itself. 

* It should be more than a mere time waster.

* It should produce something worth producing, either tangible or intangible.

* It should increase your knowledge and skills. 

* It should cost no more than you can afford; it may even produce revenue.

Hobbies are as varied as people ---- all are good if they contribute to satisfaction with life. All are useless if they do not.

Collecting offers a great field for developing a hobby, although some forms of collecting may be expensive. Some collector's items emphasize antiquity, some beauty, some rarity, some utility, and some just the collector's personal interest which is, after all, the best reason there could be for collecting.

A hobby need not be profitable financially, but there is no reason why it should not be. A collector of bottles and insulators, for example, may search in dumps for interesting specimens of glass and when he has obtained duplicates, they can be cleaned up and traded or sold. Other hobbies, too, may open the door to profitable adventure.

A hobby cannot be picked up overnight, usually. It should be the logical outcome of developing interests, which may be expanded when there is leisure time such as during vacations or when retired. A good hobby can be an emotional lifesaver. It offers a means of relaxation when pressures threaten to build up too much. A good hobby is good medicine for most everyone. How about you?

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The above is a gleaning from Central Florida Insulator Club Newsletter; sent in my Clarice Gordon.