Hobby is a hobby, not necessarily a skill.

Recently, I came across a post with this message:

pretty shitty how baseline human activities like singing, dancing and making art got turned into skills instead of being seen as behaviours so now it's like 'the point of doing them is to get good at them' and not 'this is a thing humans do, the way birds sing and bees make hives'

This message resonated with me in a way I couldn't believe. It opened my eyes. 

I didn't know what my hobbies were. I like to do certain activities, like drawing, for example, but I don’t do it enough to call it a hobby. And the reason I limit my time in that activity is because I always think of it as "I need to draw very well”, instead of thinking "I'm gonna draw because I like to draw and I enjoy drawing."

This message completely changed my perspective on how I do my hobbies. Now I draw without worrying if it's really "good art." I just focus on doing it and improving it; not just to make it great, but to make it how I want (Idk how to explain this; it has something to do with my perfectionist side in some aspects of my life).

This anxious feeling about creating "fabulous" art started when my dad wanted me to improve my art to make money from it (great idea, dad, I'm not judging you; I know you did it in case I needed extra money or if I wanted to live from my art). But then, when I met people who always wanted to make their art a masterpiece, I became more anxious and started to avoid an activity I love.

I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense at all, especially when I looked at the comments of that post; mostly, they disagreed with the message, which left me with a weird feeling about being the only one who agreed with the post.

Obviously, this isn't everyone's case. People can have their own reasons for how or why they do their hobbies. I don’t know. And, of course, this doesn't apply to drawing; in my case, drawing, dancing, and even photography can be in this situation of questioning myself, “what am I doing?” This is just a thought I had for several days, and it has changed me. I'm on vacation, so I have a lot of time to enjoy my free time. And this is the first time in a while that I’ve been able to enjoy my free time doing what I love, without thinking "this needs to be a masterpiece".

I'm not saying that improving the activities that you like to do (for any reason, like to earn money, to feel better about yourself, relieve stress; FOR ANY REASON) makes them any less personal. I'm just saying that questioning about things we take for granted because we know their background or context can change the way we do our hobbies (every context is different, and the reasons behind them are not always simple).

I'm not a great writer, English is not my first language, so I apologize in case I wrote something that could be offensive in any way (it was not my intention). I just wanted to share my thoughts because I don't know anyone who would care about this topic, or who would listen to me without saying "you’re just overthinking it; don't complicate something simple" (which I think I might be doing) :p