A popular hobby for years, putting a bird on it has only recently become a viable career.

Now that life is so much easier than it was a hundred years ago — very few of us are farming 12 hours a day to feed ourselves — we’ve grown into a world where we don’t just expect to have a job, but have a job that we love. Turn our passion into our work. This Medium post explores the phenomenon:

With fewer reasons to stay in one job, workers began to explore a wider variety of options. For some, these options included turning a hobby into a business. Young people turned to what they loved, what they were good at, with an entrepreneurial mindset angled toward self-employment. It’s why we have so many artisan lollipops and food trucks.

But the side effects are things like convincing yourself that turning your pass time into a second job is somehow noble. Or not really enjoying the thing you loved the same way you used to once you tack on the added pressure to perform, earn, or succeed.

What are the benefits and costs of turning a hobby into a career?

Have you ever wanted to try? What would you do? What stopped you?

Is there something to be said for working a traditional job and pursuing other creative or recreational things purely for pleasure?

Corona-ad-style trips look like paradise during the week, but getting trapped in one forever would be a little bit like hell, wouldn’t it?

Last weekend I was on vacation, and I have very few good vacation stories or photos, because it was intentionally more of a “do nothing”-style vacation. No adventures, no excursions, no tourist destinations, not even very many activities. Sometimes, that’s nice.

But on the last day I had a vacation-induced thought: sitting around doing nothing is ‘relaxing’ after a busy or stressful work period, but doing nothing for too long would surely drive a person crazy in the end. Without much purpose or any concrete goals or productivity, doesn’t life quickly become empty?

Let’s say “doing nothing” has a few boundaries: you can do vacation-type things like play games, read books or magazines, eat and drink or even go to bars or clubs or restaurants. But once you do anything that could be considered work, or productive, you’re not “doing nothing” any more. So no writing, creating, building. Even gardening or decorating or demanding chores are off limits. In this scenario you’re not fantastically wealthy but you’re wealthy enough not to worry and to have a well-above-average lifestyle and budget. You can be wherever you want, but you have to stay there: traveling to a new place every day is too much of an adventure, and wouldn’t count as “doing nothing”. So.

How long do you think you could go doing essentially nothing?

What would you fill your time with in order to “do nothing” for as long as possible?

What people could you do nothing with the longest?

What about doing nothing, specifically, would eventually drive you nuts?