Make a career out of your hobby and you'll no longer have a hobby
this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2025
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Yeah I get that, but goddammit I see some doing it and want to live that life.
Yep. it's all about work-life balance. Capitalism doesn’t know anything about that.
I'm a software developer by hobby and professionally. It can be a bit difficult to thread that needle. While it can be quite fun to get into "the zone" and write code for 6 hours straight until 4am multiple times a week, that's also the quickest way to burnout (and literally sent me to therapy)
One thing I'm trying to do is write a custom todo / daily planner app for my phone. I'm hoping that i can use this to better manage my free time
It's slow going, as i can only dedicate a handful of hours during the week to personal projects (before i want to yeet myself out the window at the sight of my computer). And weekends are spent playing catchup to sleep, house chores, and other hobbies
It is still fun though. I just have to remind myself to not get into analysis paralysis, and focus on manageable chunks (some days, those chunks are embarrassingly small). I literally just spent an hour or so fighting with C# csproj files to compile Android libraries (my goal was to get notifications working, but it's almost midnight)
Most important thing is to get good quality sleep, regularly, at the same time of day. Without that, you will slowly lose your sanity, and will not notice until it becomes a problem
You won't work because that position isn't hiring
I heard a good line after finishing college that would have been better, and hopefully will help someone here.
Minor in what you live, major in what will get you a job.
I think that's much better advice. Chances are you won't enjoy your work, but with a minor you could do something like minor in art or history, but major in business or something. Then you may not be doing exactly what you want, but maybe you can be adjacent to it.
Like maybe you have to be an accountant, but maybe you could be an accountant for a museum. Think of all the accountants out there who have no knowledge of the items in the museum, now think of how much more employable you could be if you said you were an accountant but you minored in art.
My job pays for the things I WANT to do.
So we kid, but check out the story of William Messner-Loebs... Arm amputated as a baby, went on to become an award winning comic book writer and artist:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Messner-Loebs
From his independent work on Journey, to writing commercial successes like the Flash, pretty much everything he did is worth reading.
And just before the pandemic, nearing 70 years of age, in poor health with his wife nearing 80 and also in poor health... they were living in a car delivering sandwiches to keep the wolf from the door.
There was a whole GoFundMe and everything.
https://www.fox2detroit.com/news/comic-book-artist-worked-on-wonder-woman-thor-now-homeless
Things got better:
https://icv2.com/articles/news/view/50982/william-messner-loebs-is-home-last
Then worse:
https://community.cbr.com/threads/william-messner-loebs-is-in-dire-need.167968/
See he just picked one of the professions with its own idiom that cancels out the first one. That's why he was starving before becoming a janitor.