Self-Reliance · Avocations
Start Your Avocation Now, Whatever the Future Holds
A lifelong practice pays off whatever the future of work brings. The best time to begin is while your calendar is still full.
By Dan Whelan, founder of New World Survival
Researched from government agencies, university extension services, and other published sources. See our sources
Contents
What this guide covers
Start here
The work you are called away to
Some people come home from work and go straight to the garden. Some sit down at a desk after supper and write a page. Some spend Saturday mornings at a lathe, a loom, a choir rehearsal, or a riverbank with a fly rod. Nobody pays them for it. Most of them would tell you it is one of the best parts of their week.
That is an avocation. The word comes from the Latin for "a calling away," and it means exactly that: the work you are called away to, the thing you do because you want to rather than because you have to. A vocation pays the bills. An avocation is often what makes the rest of life feel like yours.
This guide makes one case: the best time to start a lifelong avocation is now, while your schedule is still full. It covers why that holds whatever the future of work brings, what the research shows, and what a good avocation gives you. Choosing one and starting cheaply each have their own guide.
Start now · 01
What an avocation is, and what it is not
An avocation is a sustained practice. You return to it again and again, you get better at it, and it gives something back each time. Gardening, writing, woodworking, music, baking, birding, quilting, amateur radio, and hundreds of others all qualify.
A few things set an avocation apart from simply passing the time:
- It has a learning curve. There is always a next level. A tenth-year gardener is still learning about soil.
- It produces something. A harvest, a finished chapter, a chair, a song you can now play. Even when the product is small, it is real.
- It connects you to other people. Clubs, guilds, swap meets, online forums, a neighbor who does the same thing.
- You choose it. No one assigns it. That freedom is part of what makes it restorative.
Scrolling, binge-watching, and other easy pastimes have their place. They just tend not to build anything, and most people do not look back on them as time well spent.
Start now · 02
The question people are asking
A lot of people are asking a big question right now. If artificial intelligence and robotics take over more of the work people do, what will we do with our time? And if work is where many of us find structure, friendship, and a sense of being useful, where will those things come from instead?
Nobody knows how that will play out. Some economists expect large changes to many kinds of jobs. Others expect new kinds of work to appear, as they have after every major shift in technology. Proposals like universal basic income are being debated, and none of it is settled.
Here is the useful part: you do not need to know the answer to act sensibly. A well-chosen avocation is a good investment under every version of the future.
- If work changes a great deal, people with a practice they love will already have structure, skill, friends, and a reason to get up in the morning.
- If work stays much as it is, those same people will have spent years doing something they enjoy, and they will carry it into retirement, which arrives for nearly everyone eventually.
Either way, you come out ahead. That is the whole argument of this guide.
The evidence
What the research says
Two large studies are worth knowing about.
In 2023, researchers led by University College London pooled data on more than 93,000 adults aged 65 and older across 16 countries. People who had a hobby reported fewer symptoms of depression and higher happiness, self-rated health, and life satisfaction, and the pattern held across countries with only small differences. Life satisfaction showed the strongest link.1 The authors are careful to say the relationship likely runs both ways: healthier, happier people may be more likely to take up hobbies, and keeping a hobby may help keep them that way.
A 2019 study in JAMA Network Open followed nearly 7,000 Americans over 50 from the Health and Retirement Study. People with the strongest sense of purpose in life had lower death rates over the following years than those with the weakest, including from heart and circulatory conditions.2 The study did not ask where people found their purpose, so it does not prove that hobbies cause longer lives. It does suggest that purpose matters, and a practice you care about is one of the most reliable places to find it.
Neither study says a hobby will fix anything on its own. Together they point in a steady direction: people who stay engaged with something they care about tend to do better.
Start now · 03
What a good avocation gives you
Most lasting avocations provide some mix of the following. You do not need all of them, but the more a practice offers, the more likely you are to stay with it.
- Competence. The quiet satisfaction of being good at something, and getting a little better each season.
- Purpose. A reason to plan, a project waiting for you, something that needs you this week.
- People. A club, a class, a guild, or a friend who shares it. For many retirees, this becomes their main social circle.
- Movement. Gardening, hiking, dancing, and woodworking keep your body in use. Even writing can be paired with a daily walk.
- Something to show and share. Tomatoes for the neighbors, a quilt for a grandchild, a story for a reader.
- Usefulness. Many avocations build real household skills along the way. A gardener grows food. A woodworker can fix a door. A sewist can mend. A ham radio operator can help with community communications. The practice comes first, and the capability follows.
Start now · 04
Choosing one that fits
The best avocation is not the most impressive one. It is the one you will actually keep doing. Two questions narrow the field quickly. What do you want it to give you: quiet, company, something to eat, something to hold, a way to help others? And could you see yourself doing it at 80?
Our guide to choosing an avocation that fits your life walks through the rest, from a life-fit inventory to a 30-day pilot.
Start now · 05
Why start now
It is tempting to wait until retirement, or until life calms down. There are good reasons not to.
Skill takes years. Most rewarding practices need several seasons before they feel easy. Starting now means you arrive at retirement, or any other change in your working life, already competent rather than starting cold.
Busy people learn what they really love. When time is scarce, you only keep what matters to you. An avocation that survives a full calendar is one worth keeping.
Friendships take time too. The garden club, the writers' group, the woodworking guild: these relationships grow slowly. Joining early means they are well established when you need them most.
Small starts are cheap. A few seed packets, a notebook, a library book. You can learn whether you like something before spending real money.
It makes the present better. You do not have to wait for any future to get the benefit. An evening in the garden is good tonight.
First experience
Where to begin this month
You do not need a grand plan. One practice, one group, one recurring time on the calendar.
- Pick one candidate. Choose the one that has pulled at you longest.
- Borrow before you buy. Start with a library book and borrowed tools.
- Find one person or group who already does it, and go back more than once.
- Put a standing time on the calendar, even one hour a week.
The guides to beginning without buying too much and to finding a club, class, or mentor cover steps two and three in detail.
Start now · 06
Two examples: gardening and writing
Gardening may be the classic lifelong avocation. It keeps you moving, puts you outdoors, follows the seasons, and produces something you can eat and share. It scales well: a balcony of herbs, a backyard plot, or a community garden bed. A gardener at 30 and a gardener at 80 are doing the same practice at different sizes.
Writing asks very little of the body and almost nothing in equipment, which makes it one of the most durable practices there is. Journals, letters, family history, essays, fiction. It rewards a daily habit, and it grows with you, since you always have more to say at 70 than at 30. Writers' groups, library workshops, and local historical societies are good places to find others who share it.
Sources
Sources
- Mak, H. W., Noguchi, T., Bone, J. K., et al. (2023). Hobby engagement and mental wellbeing among people aged 65 years and older in 16 countries. Nature Medicine, 29(9), 2233–2240. Summary: University College London news release, September 2023. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2023/sep/hobbies-linked-lower-depression-levels-among-older-people
- Alimujiang, A., Wiensch, A., Boss, J., et al. (2019). Association between life purpose and mortality among US adults older than 50 years. JAMA Network Open, 2(5), e194270. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/6632139