How cooking helped me cope with my job: Anticapitalist reasons to have a hobby

by Emily Pyle

Before the pandemic, I never paid much attention to how I filled my time. Obviously I spent time with friends and family, binged my favorite TV shows, became a dotting cat mother, but I never put energy into learning a new skill or developing a hobby. The activity that took up most of my time, and subsequently became my entire identity, was my job.

I went to college in an era that valued being a “girl boss” and emphasized the importance of putting your all into your job. This was something that never really sat well with me, but I didn’t have the words to describe what made me uncomfortable. So once I graduated, I strived for that definition of success to apply to me since it was all I knew. I relied on my role as a nonprofit professional to be my entire identity.

Smash cut to 2020. The pandemic has forced the entire country to reevaluate how they spend - and value - their time. People are picking up pandemic hobbies (a term I don’t love...more on that later) and many folks are figuring out a new work/life balance. This was a huge wakeup call for me. I was working remotely, blurring the lines of work life and home life, and I was starting to feel anxiety around my job. As I started to sit with these feelings, I realized that they weren’t new: they had always been there.

It was just easier to ignore them because of my quick work pace and the little highs from work-related successes. My job was the only thing outside of my personal relationships that made me happy, and it didn’t actually make me happy. This was reaffirmed from an article in The Cut, which quoted research that stated “[the] narrower a person’s vision of their “self” is, the more prone they are to depression and anxiety”. I realized that I no longer wanted my job to be the only thing in my life. I wanted to make a change. The question now was, what would I do? 

As I was digging into finding a hobby, I took to the internet to get advice on where to start. But as I was reading through listicle upon listicle, I was shocked at the amount of articles arguing that adults should have hobbies because it will make them better at work. In fact, there was a recent New York Times article that explicitly advocated for picking up a hobby because it will improve your work performance. I think this is a dangerous narrative that we need to leave behind. 

Hobbies should exist outside of the capitalist system. They should not exist to make us better producers to a system that is failing us. They need to exist to challenge us to reprioritize our lives and dedicate our love and energy to something that makes us and our loved ones happy.

After a few weeks of trying to force dedication to a hobby, I came to realize that I was happiest when I was preparing a meal for me and my partner. I decided to lean into these feelings and have prioritized cooking and baking as my primary hobby. Because of this, I have felt more like myself than I have in years. Here are the ways in which my hobby has improved my life, that has nothing to do with my job. 

Transitioning from working at home to relaxing at home

I used to have a really hard time transitioning from work mode to home mode before I leaned into cooking. I would move from working at my kitchen table to sitting on my couch, constantly thinking about what I still needed to do for work. Now, I have a routine and a mindful way to stop thinking about my day to day responsibilities. 

Learning new skills, for yourself 

Before I cooked for pleasure, I made the same couple of recipes every week. Now, I am thrilled with the idea of taking on a new challenging recipe. Whether that comes from making a dish that is entirely new to me or discovering how to swap out ingredients that I don’t have, this is the first time in a long time that taking on a new challenge isn’t intimidating to me. The pride from these accomplishments lasts longer than what I used to get from work. 

Providing immediate stress relief 

From chopping vegetables, obviously.

Creating community connections

The Twin Cities has a great selection of co-ops, farmers markets, and CSAs. After living in Minneapolis for almost ten years, I feel more connected to this community than I ever have before. Spending my weekends and evenings trying a new grocery store or visiting a new market brings me immense joy and gives me something to look forward to outside of work.

Finding something that I enjoy so much has definitely improved my mental health and my life overall. And while there may be an argument to be made that it has improved my work, I am not focusing on that at all. If anything, it has improved my relationship with my job in setting boundaries between it and the rest of my life.

To conclude, my call to action for all of us is that we dedicate time and care to these activities. My wish is that we don’t rely on these new skills as just “pandemic hobbies,” but as priorities that we embed into our lives and become part of us. We are so much more than employees at our jobs.

- Emily Pyle -