On Loving Your Little Life

I was driving home Sunday evening with dirt under my fingernails, a sore thumb from canning, and the unmistakable smell of apples lingering in my car from brining home apple scraps for the chickens after making cider, and a box of freshly made pickles literally strapped into the passenger seat. I was tired in that deep, full-body way that comes after a weekend spent outside in the heat and over the stove in the heat. The kind of tired where your muscles ache, your clothes are damp from the August humidity, and you know you're going to sleep well that night. By most measures, I probably should have been wishing for another day to recover. Instead, I caught myself smiling. I was exhausted, but I was also completely content. Somewhere between the jars of pickles cooling on the counter, bottling Fire Cider, pressing apples into cider, and wandering through the garden gathering whatever was ripe that day, I realized something. This wasn't a weekend I needed a vacation from. This was the life I had hoped to build.

That realization stayed with me because earlier in the week I had been talking with one of my clients about hobbies. She works all day, comes home, cooks dinner, takes care of the house, manages paperwork for her aging mother, and then goes to bed so she can do it all again tomorrow. On the weekends she occasionally gets together with friends, but when I asked her what she enjoys doing simply for herself, she paused. She couldn't think of an answer. It wasn't because she was lazy or lacked interests. Life had simply become maintenance. Every hour belonged to someone or something else. By the time everything that needed to be done was finished, there wasn't much room left for joy.

I don't think she's alone.

Somewhere along the way we've started believing that hobbies need to justify themselves. If you enjoy baking, maybe you should open a bakery. If you're good at photography, perhaps you should start a business. If you knit, maybe you should create and Etsy shop. Even our free time has become something we're expected to optimize, monetize, or turn into a side hustle. We've become so focused on productivity that we've forgotten adults are allowed to do things simply because they enjoy them.

I don't want that for myself, and I don't want it for my patients.

The life we live every single day is our life. Yes, vacations are wonderful. Celebrations matter. Milestone moments deserve to be treasured. But they make up only a tiny fraction of our years. Most of our lives are ordinary Tuesdays, quiet Saturday mornings, evenings after work, and slow Sunday afternoons. If we're constantly waiting for the next trip, the next holiday, or the next big achievement before we allow ourselves to feel joy, we're spending most of our lives waiting to live.

That's why I think hobbies matter so much.

Not because they make us more productive, although many of them do. Not because they're good for our brains, even though research consistently shows that people who engage in meaningful hobbies tend to experience lower stress, better cognitive health, and greater overall well-being. Not because they improve hand dexterity, balance, or coordination, although many of them certainly can. Those are wonderful benefits, but they aren't the point.

The point is joy.

Maybe your hobby is learning to play the piano in your sixties. Maybe it's watercolor painting, birdwatching, fly fishing, quilting, woodworking, dancing, playing D &D, or taking cooking classes. Maybe it's gardening because you love watching something grow from a tiny seed into a meal you can share with your family. Maybe it's collecting rocks because every walk becomes a small treasure hunt. I honestly don't care what it is. What I care about is that somewhere in your week there is something you would choose to do even if nobody ever saw it, applauded it, or paid you for it.

When I think about my own hobbies, I realize almost all of them have become woven into the life I've intentionally built. I garden because I love watching the seasons unfold. I make herbal medicines because I enjoy learning the plants that grow around me. I press apple cider, can tomatoes, crochet, embroider, take photographs of wildflowers, and stop to admire interesting rocks on a walk. Years ago, when I decided to move back to Nebraska, more than one person gently suggested I might become bored. I was leaving behind a bigger city with endless entertainment and choosing what many people would describe as a quieter life.

What I've discovered is that my life isn't smaller at all.

It's fuller.

The things that bring me joy are beautifully ordinary. A basket of tomatoes still warm from the garden. A butterfly landing on the zinnias. Learning a new stitch in embroidery. Watching a thunderstorm roll across the corn fields. Standing in the kitchen while jars of salsa cooling the counter and listening for the satisfying click of the jars sealing. None of those moments would look particularly exciting on paper, yet together they form a life that feels deeply satisfying. They aren't distractions from living. They are living.

As a practitioner, I spend a great deal of time talking with people about nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, and lab work. Those things matter, and I will continue talking about them because they're important. But increasingly I find myself asking another question.

What makes your ordinary life feel rich?

Not your vacation. Not your retirement plans. Not the trip you've been saving for next year.

Today.

This week.

This ordinary Tuesday.

Because health isn't simply about living longer. It's about building a life you're genuinely happy to wake up to. It's about creating days that leave you pleasantly tired instead of emotionally empty. It's about finding enough beauty, curiosity, play, and purpose in your everyday life that you don't spend all year counting down to the next escape.

So if you've been waiting for permission to try something simply because it sounds fun, consider this your invitation. Learn pottery badly. Plant tomatoes even if the squirrels steal half of them. Take dance lessons. Buy the watercolor paints. Join the birdwatching club. Pick up the crochet hook. Read novels again. Let yourself be a beginner. Let yourself enjoy something without asking what it will accomplish or whether you'll ever be good at it.

Joy doesn't have to justify itself.

As I drove home Sunday evening, sore and sweaty after another weekend of harvest, thinking about how my husband was on a bike trip, and my friends were doing a girls weekend I couldn’t attend, I realized something that made me unexpectedly grateful. I wasn't wishing I lived somewhere else or that my weekends looked different. I wasn't counting the days until my next vacation. I wasn't waiting for life to begin.

I was already living it.

And I hope, in whatever way is true for you, you can say the same.