There are so many kinds of hobbies that people derive enjoyment from, ranging from crocheting, sewing, or baking to outdoor sports like hiking or walking.
A study from Harvard Health finds that hobbies are an important facet of happiness and overall emotional well-being: it’s important to have activities that bring joy in order to balance out work, both as students and into adulthood.
However, as today’s world becomes increasingly achievement-oriented, especially for high school students facing college pressures, the time for hobbies and activities that are simply fun seems to diminish.
A Princeton Review survey finds that 74% of students feel overwhelmingly stressed about college applications, not just in their senior year but in the years leading up to it as well. Because of this, many students feel pressure to select extracurriculars or activities based on how they will look on their applications in order to improve their chances of getting into a good school.
This phenomenon, combined with the increasing number of students taking many difficult AP classes, leaves significantly less time for leisure and hobbies that bring genuine enjoyment.
Many students might feel guilty relaxing or pursuing enjoyable hobbies if they feel that this time could have been spent on an extracurricular that would look better for college applications. This guilt makes it impossible to truly relax and enjoy the activity.
It is important to remember that these hobbies don’t have to be this way. They don’t necessarily need to be productive or serve a purpose beyond bringing joy. This has many positive mental health benefits, according to WebMD.
This same phenomenon occurs with high school sports; students feel pressure to perform and constantly succeed, even though they don’t need to be the best, or to go on to play in college.
Only 7% of high school athletes go on to play a sport in college, and less than 2% of athletes play at a Division 1 school, according to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
This illustrates that the odds of success in a high school sport carrying students into college are somewhat low. Despite this, many student athletes feel that their enjoyment of the sport significantly decreases as they participate in high school athletics because of pressures from coaches, parents, or even themselves.
Since it is unlikely that students will go on to play in college, even though this may be a viable option for some, more emphasis should be on finding the enjoyment in these sports and just pushing themselves to do their best, not constantly stressing about it.
Hobbies and activities are meant to be fun and provide stress relief from academics in order to improve emotional well-being, and this should be more strongly emphasized.
