Nowadays, it’s expected that you should be productive constantly. Whether you’re a student studying for their next exam or doing homework or an adult doing some work, being busy and productive are expected. Even with hobbies, they’re expected to have some visible "output".
While there being output isn’t a problem, the obligation to have some is. By feeling like you have to produce something of value, the enjoyment of that activity evaporates. Rather than doing an activity for its intrinsic enjoyment, you lose sight of why you started doing it in the first place.
More pressingly, why does this obligation exist? Why do we feel that everything we do must have some sort of external value? Why can’t we do something just for the sake of enjoying it? Personally, I think this is because of the emphasis on having to succeed in life. We’re pushed to be at the top and be a leader in whatever we do.
Everywhere around us, we see only the extremes of life simply because they are extreme. Hearing about the normal, everyday occurrences simply isn’t entertaining enough for most people. This causes what should be a spectrum to turn into a binary – you’re either the best at what you do and receiving praise for it or you’re a catastrophic mess of a person.
Not only that, the idea of doing something purely so it’s valuable in some way is almost mandatory for teenagers who need to have a wide range of extracurricular activities to increase their chances at getting into a good university. I know plenty of friends who started a sport or attending a club just so they could put it on a university application when the time came round.
While there is nothing wrong with using an activity as a means to an end, care must be taken to avoid this same approach from affecting intrinsically enjoyable activities. It’s been shown that by adding an extrinsic reward for an activity that people normally do for the intrinsic benefit, people become reliant on the extrinsic reward to feel motivated to do the activity. This means that when the external reward is gone, they’re just not motivated enough by the intrinsic enjoyment in the same activity.
Rather than doing something because they enjoy it, they focus on what extra things they can gain from doing it. Some activities will have some sort of external benefits attached to them but these should not be the focus of what you’re doing if you want to do the activity because it’s enjoyable.
So next time someone asks what’s the point of one of your hobbies, just remember that there doesn’t need to be one – enjoying it is plenty.
I like your writing style. Good Work!