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If you started a job that was close to your hobby, has that diminished your love for it? (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 day ago by digdilem@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

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I've heard this before, but haven't found it the case personally. I started work in manual jobs and messing around with computers was my evening hobby. Many years later, I now do IT as a job (partly from gaining skills from that hobby) but also have continued it as my primary thing to do when I'm not working. I was worried when I changed into this career that my hobby would become too much like work to be enjoyable, but I've not found that.

Is this the same for other people, or am I unusual in doing something in my off hours that's so close to my career? I'm genuinely curious to know if others have found the same or whether they found another hobby.

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[–] Hazzard@lemmy.zip 3 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago) (1 children)

Definitely somewhat, but not so much "diminished my enjoyment" as "prevents me from doing as a hobby".

Programmer here, and I find that working on these types of problems just wears out that "part" of my brain. It becomes not fun to force myself to focus on those things as a hobby anymore, despite that being how I got into programming. I don't resent it though, I actually really enjoy doing it as my job. And shake it up a little, and I'll hugely enjoy something like programming systems in Factorio, but any ambitions I have of say, making a game, aren't happening until I retire or change careers.

[–] digdilem@lemmy.ml 2 points 6 hours ago

I can understand that. I've always coded for fun (Basic, Turbo C, lots of psuedo languages, then perl, sql, php, python and so on) - learning that stuff is hard for me but very rewarding when I do. I actually find it harder to learn stuff at work, but it's great to do at work too. I transfer skills between the two schools - and each has enough variation that whilst there's technical and skill crossover, the headspace is very different - at least for me. But yes, if I've been doing that all day, I'll do something else in the evening. I restored a car as a distraction from work once, but that was when I was in a job that I really hated.

High five for factorio mention. Incredible game, although I'm playing more Captain of Industry lately. Different but similar brain scratching.