Ask YC: Hobbies as a Source of Frustration?

[supahfly_remix]

Now that I am an engineer, I understand the amount of effort required to complete a project. The downside of this is that the natural curiosity that I had as a kid toward playing with electronics/software projects is suffering. To do anything interesting to me requires more contiguous time than I have (and for electronics, more sophisticated equipment than I own).

I secretly believe I'm just trying to recapture the fun I had playing with lego or my Atari 130 XE as a kid; projects were self-contained and could be done in a single sitting.

Does this happen to any of you? How do you deal with it?

[gloodnc]

I think this starts off with voracious reading of other subjects that may have interested you as a kid, but that you never had the time or inclination to learn.

In order to stave off the slightly depressing feeling that your original childhood passions are waning, you pick up new subjects or skills to learn so that you can re-kindle excitement. This is certainly what has worked for me. It helps that you're probably naturally curious about almost anything to begin with (apologies for the gross generalization).

[supahfly_remix → gloodnc]

Thanks, that's good advice. I'll give that a try.

I am pretty curious, although I try to limit it intentionally. With the internet, it's unfortunately very easy to get sidetracked...