Hobby or Passion or Interest What is the difference? Is there a difference?

Is your hobby also your passion or has your passion become your hobby? Does it matter? What about interests, where do they fit in? A lot of people think that your hobby is your passion and that you have to have a hobby you are passionate about; I disagree for a number of reasons.

What is the difference between a hobby and a passion? One definition I have heard is this: “A hobby is something you choose to do when you have a little spare time, but a passion is something that you consider fundamental to your life, something you make time and effort to undertake on a regular basis.”

Expanding on this and relating it back to radios and me I have some thoughts this. A lot of people are involved in the radio hobby for a number of reasons. Some people have this as an extension of their professional work or volunteer work, for others it was a hobby passed on to them from family or friends. The main difference to me between a hobby, passions and interests is both how you feel about and also how other people see it.

I first became involved in the radio hobby as a teenager listening to distant radio stations on the AM broadcast band of a night time, as I grew older I became involved in electronics at college and this grew to an interest in another radio related area which was radio scanning, this was about 20 years ago. Over the past 20 years while I have mostly been involved in radio scanning I have a couple of times tried by hand at shortwave and medium wave listening with mixed success.

Going back to my original question of the difference between a hobby, passion and interest I have some thoughts, I will use fishing as an example but this can be related back to almost anything.

If you go fishing a couple of times a year when you go away for a holiday, then this is an interest.

If you go fishing a couple of times a month and maybe read a magazine or two this is a hobby.

If you go fishing as often as you can, read magazines and books, maybe be a part of a club and plan things around fishing then this is a passion.

The second part of this is around other people and what they see of you from your interest, hobby or passion. I work with computers as my job and while I enjoy the work, it is not really a passion, it is what pays the bills. Some people I know work with computers but also play games, build websites and build computers outside work, this then becomes a passion for them. Sometimes when I am talking to people they are surprised to find I don’t have a huge computer at home and that I don’t play games much. A lot of people get defined by other people because of their work where as in a lot of cases that is not all that is important to them. I would much rather talk about radios than computers for example.

Something to always be mindful of is that your interest, hobby or passion does not become to the determent of your work, family, friends or relationships. I have on more than one occasion seen how destructive having a single focus can be to relationships. Balance is the key; however, you should not let somebody try and change you to suit what they perceive as being right or better.

This leads to an interesting question: “How Much Is Too Much to Spend on Your Hobbies?” Is this from a financial point of view? What about the value you get from it? Can you put a value on this? What is your time worth? Where does it fit in to your overall life?