An unexpected hobby

Ditching productivity for fun

Thanks for reading my work. I’m Louise and I write about life and managing it’s unexpected twists and turns. If you’d like to read more, please do hit subscribe to support my work. Please do also say hi in the comments - I’d love to hear from you!

---

Photo from Towcester MidSummer Music Festival

As I walked out onto the stage I was nervous. I hadn’t been on a stage since my school days, and even then I avoided it like the plague (hello INFJ HSP personality type). I wriggled into the back row, tucked in behind a tall person. I could just about see my husband in the audience but didn’t make eye contact with him. The music started up, our choir leader mouthing the first line to us, and we were on. 

Despite not being very musically-inclined, nor (as my husband reminds me) can I sing, I have always thought I would like to be in a choir. It seemed like such a soul-soothing hobby. But until 2022 I had always put it off. I already had a diary full of other commitments and joining a choir never made it to the top of the list. It wasn’t ‘productive’ enough, didn’t seem to achieve anything, maybe even seemed a little frivolous in the currency of time.

I am most definitely a ‘doer’, a ‘completer-finisher’ according to a personality types training I once did at work. I can pack a lot into my days and pride myself on being time-efficient. When I retrained in nutrition I used every spare block of time outside of my day job to study. Lunchtimes were a chance to read papers, the bus home was for podcasts, and evenings were for studying. Once I got into this pattern, even after I graduated, it was hard to break it. I was then learning how to set up and run a business in my spare time.  

The online world exacerbates this need to ‘do more’. It can make us feel guilty when we see what others are posting, what they get up to with their time and how much they get done. There has also been a side-hustle culture emerge that encourages us to have a business on the side of another job. For many, me included, this led to burnout. But I do think it also reinforced my tendency to fill up with my days and squashed out anything that wasn’t with a clear purpose or achievement at the end. There was no time for fun things just for the sake of them being fun.

When I quit my business I was left with a gaping hole in my time where I didn’t need to be constantly learning, studying, or growing the business. I didn’t know what to do with myself but I had a feeling I wanted to structure my time a little differently. 

One thing that always bothered me when I was studying and retraining was that people would admire and comment on how hard-working I was and adept at managing ‘it all’. At the start I felt a pride and thought ‘yep, I’m superwoman and can handle everything with ease!’. Except I couldn’t, and it has taken me years to recover from the stress and burnout I experienced as a result. Something was niggling at me that maybe didn’t totally align with my values. A change in pace of my work life, combined with other things going on at the time, triggered me to stop and mull this over. 

During this time, my own fertility struggles led to me living a very restrictive and limited life as I tried to control everything to a tee. When none of it worked, I sunk into a dark place and had nothing fun in my life to fall back on. I was also shaken by some sudden and devastating deaths of people I knew of at work or in the community that highlighted how short life is. I think the pandemic years made us all realise what we took for granted and what actually matters in life.

All these factors led me to the conclusion of what is life without fun and enjoyment? Yes it’s good to have goals and work towards them, but not to the detriment of joy and fun. There is no prize at the end of life for the most things achieved. I realised that I don’t want to be remembered as hard-working and productive. I needed (wanted!) to loosen the strings more and enjoy things in life that nourish my soul.

Joining Rock Choir has changed how I approach life beyond work. I still have tendencies to be the most productive human but I try to reign it in when I notice that. When I started writing more and created this Substack, I decided to take a casual approach to it and not tie myself to writing at a particular time or a certain frequency of posting new pieces. I want to enjoy it for the fun of the task, not become a slave to it or strive to reach a certain quota of subscribers. 

With the choir, I am not trying to be the best singer or participant. (I remind you, I can’t even sing!) It’s for the pure soul-enhancing fun of belting out a great song in a room with others. We learn harmonies by listen-and-repeat (no sheet music skills required), and the sound we make sometimes sends shivers down my spine. It’s glorious. 

I found myself on that stage singing my heart out, creeping out of the shadow of the tall person by the end, and loving it. My husband said to me ‘you looked well into that Abba one!’. Too right I was! What is more joyful than singing Abba with others for the sheer joy of it, our daily worries melting away into the background for just a moment? For that, it’s worth loosening the reins and letting go.