One of three things happen to your creative passions once you become a time-strapped family man:
1. You let them die
2. You pursue them anyways
3. You hobbify
Option one is clearly shit and the number one reason we have an epidemic of “ghosts at the table” around the globe.
Option two is the courageous, worthwhile path. It’s what Third Way Man is all about.
And then there’s option three.
Oh, option three. You seem so wise, so practical, so grown-up.
You tell yourself you no longer have the time or freedom to “go pro” with your passions–to pursue them at the utmost level of your ability–so you decide from here on out you’ll do it “just for fun.”
And in that moment of rationalization, you’ve taken what was once the driving passion of your creative life and reduced it to a hobby.
You’ve hobbified.
Yes, you feel the brief stab in the heart, but come on. You have to be realistic. How can you be expected to go pro when you’ve go a wife, kids, and bills to pay? The days of swinging for the fences are over.
In short, you believe the lie that going pro exacts a price you cannot pay.
You think going pro means working longer hours or nationwide touring schedules or moving to Hollywood or quitting your day job.
You think saying “yes” to your passions means saying “no” to your family.
You look at fatherhood and see only constraints and liabilities: less time, less money, less risk tolerance.
But you forget the assets…the ways fatherhood forges you for greatness.
Yes, clearly you cannot go pro in the same way a 23-year-old bachelor would, living on beans and rice and 80 hour work weeks.
Thankfully, you are older and wiser and have the network, the hard-earned emotional intelligence, the life experience, and the REASON WHY required for success.
You go pro by partnering with others.
You go pro by using a force multiplying strategy your younger counterparts would never have the breadth of experience to even consider.
You go pro by cutting your craft down to its angry red essence so that the 5 hours a week you dedicate to it is more than enough to bring your audience to their knees.
Fatherhood is an ILLEGITIMATE excuse for hobbiyfing the things you should be dedicating your life to.
Fatherhood is no liability. It is the single greatest lever you have, so long as you have the eyes to see it and the stones to pull it.
Dude. I “Hobbified” a long time ago and turned to corporate soul killers as a way to finance “the american dream” when my wife and I started a family. Then when I was downsized, there was pressure to keep up with “the dream”. I hobbified when I should have kick-started. The last few years I’ve been freelancing and rooting around to convert my “hobby” back into a passion. This article paraphrased this change so well. Good stuff.