It might help you too idk.
For pretty much all my life I thought hobbies had to be creative or at least produce something. E.g. guitar, drawing, photography, creative writing, playing sports, etc.
I think this is the case for many people, we believe that a hobby has to produce something at the end of the process, or teach you something, to count as a hobby.
I also thought that you had to spend a lot of time doing something to count as a hobby, or that you had to be an expert in it. And that you could only have one.
It was while playing a video game that I realized hobbies were something completely different, and the devs didn’t even intend for it lol.
Hobbies are basically anything you like to spend time on. Keeping up with world news, spending time with friends, discovering new things (music, cool places around town).
It can even be more abstract: organizing information (if you like to collect things), becoming more efficient (less time spent on one task), solving math problems… even daydreaming might be a hobby.
I think a hobby is more accurately defined as something you do during your leisure time somewhat regularly. It doesn’t need to be your whole thing, it doesn’t need to be something you intend to become great at, and it doesn’t need to be something that you’ve done since childhood and will do until you die. It might not even be something you particularly enjoy doing over something else (e.g. daydreaming - I imagine most people do it naturally and don’t really think about it).
I grow chili pepper plants for example in a single pot and I’m starting to consider it a hobby. This hobby is not gardening; it’s taking care of my one chili plant. It’s one of my many hobbies, I’m not going to scale it up (well, maybe just a little bit) or become a gardener, and that’s fine!
Anyway, you might find this useful.
This is kinda how hobby is understood in Poland: anything that you like to do in your free time that isn’t your source of income (or at least major income). That “being productive” thing is fairly recent here and obviously to a surprising lot of people came with capitalism and is percieved as part of the hustle culture. Of course USA cultural invasion is beating it into Poles too, but just free time enjoyers are still very common.
There’s also that, but I’m also using the word productive here to mean to produce an output, e.g. a text, a song, a pottery…
Taking a walk is also a hobby! Sometimes we don’t realize that the things we do are hobbies, and don’t consider them to be anything, but anything you do somewhat regularly during leisure time is one of your hobbies!
Yes i meant thing like that too, as i said “free time enjoyers”. And funnily enough taking a walks is commonly recognized as quite fun and legit hobby in Poland, though less and less as we get crushed with work and general crunch more and more.