The Importance of Interests
During the weekend, I sat and fiddled with a new theme for Bear blog.
I'm not a professional designer and have no ambition to become one. I just think it's very fun and interesting to tinker with. Time slips away in an almost meditative state as small snippets of text magically transform the canvas.
Regardless of what we like or do for work, I think it's extremely important to have personal interests. Unfortunately, these are often the first things to go when we're struggling.
I've been in the darkest of places myself. One by one, I abandoned my interests. Not because I'd lost interest, but because I thought it would fix what was broken.
A fruitless attempt, of course, to try to fix the inside by messing with the outside. A downward spiral that accelerated into the bottomless depths with each interest I let go. In the end, they were all gone – and I felt worse than ever.
Fortunately, I got the help I needed. Slowly but surely, I began to climb out of the grave I'd dug for myself. As time passed, I started to reintroduce my interests, slowly and cautiously: designing, photography, movies…
It wasn’t a quick fix, that’s for sure, and not the only change I had to make. But things were heading in the right direction.
Now I feel better than in a long, long time –although it’s still like being on a crab fishing boat on the Bering Sea, not knowing when the next storm will hit.
If it weren't for rediscovering my love of my interests and letting them illuminate my life, I'd still be lost in the dark. My interests are lighthouses on the rough sea of life.