GENERAL CARE OF THE BODY: HOBBIES
Hobbies provide relaxation and help to maintain the zest for living that doctors have come to realize is immensely important to your health and general well-being.
Ideally, each of us should have an indoor and an outdoor hobby that gives us genuine, long-range satisfaction. Some energetic people change their hobbies every year or two. I prefer to be more casual, letting the hobby grow with time. I enjoy photography, which lends itself to both indoors and outdoors; piano playing, fishing, and swimming have also served well for me.
Hobbies need not be expensive. Some of them, like gardening and refinishing old furniture, or sewing and embroidering, can more than pay for themselves.
A hobby should be something you want to do. It should give you both satisfaction and relaxation. Your hobby should be worth doing. If it is a mere time filler with no built-in value, you will soon become bored. Being worthwhile, it will sooner or later be productive, not only in terms of inner satisfaction, but possibly even financially. Many women who started sewing or embroidering for fun and many men who turned to cabinet-making for relaxation later found their skills and services in demand at a profit. Finally, do not wait to begin until you are retired. How you develop your interests and activities as a young person, then in middle age, will largely determine how enjoyably you will spend your later years.
Adult education is becoming more and more popular. The motives range from completing degree requirements, to acquiring new knowledge or skill for its own sake, to developing a hobby.
Your local education department may offer adult courses at night.
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