Hobby

A hobby is an occupation that you enjoy in your spare time on a regular basis, investing not only time but also effort and / or research.

For example, watching TV every day is not a hobby, because it is a passive enjoyment - one sits in one's armchair watching others working. But television can be called your hobby if you participate in creating TV programs or play in TV shows outside your work.

Here are some examples of what some famous people liked to do in their spare time: Victor Hugo enjoyed hiking and horse back riding; Ivan Turgenev was an enthusiastic hunter; Earnest Hemingway was good at sailing and fishing; the hobby of the writer Alexander Dumas was cooking, and so was that of the composer Rossini.

Some people excelled in their hobbies more than in their profession and became famous due to their hobbies. This happened to the doctor Anton Chekhov, to the teacher Konstantin Tsiolkovski, and to Mikhail Botvinnik, a Ph.D in engineering, whose hobby - chess brought him the world champion title.

Nowadays it has become rather difficult for a lot of people to maintain a hobby, because television has entered our life, offering an easy way to pass free time without investing a lot of effort. Before we admitted the "one-eyed monster" into our homes, we used to enjoy civilized pleasures more: we used to entertain our friends or be entertained by them, we used to participate in sporting events, we used to have hobbies. Now a lot of our free time is regulated by the TV. We rush home or gulp down our meals to be in time for this or that programme.

Who knows how many people never discovered their talants and vocations because they were too busy staring at the screen thoughtlessly? How about you?

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