Joy Over Hustle: Why Play Matters More Than You Think

The sitar case still zips shut. Eight months have passed. It sits in the corner like an old friend whom you haven’t phoned back. You get a peculiar mix of shame and sadness each time you pass it. The same sensation you get when you realise you’ve forgotten something important. You tell yourself that you’re too busy. But that’s not it. Everyone’s busy. The truth is, it runs deeper. Somewhere along the way, we started believing that we don’t deserve fun unless it serves a purpose.  

How We Lost the Right to Play  

The Deal We Never Meant to Make  

Between all-nighters and your first pay cheque, you accepted a contract you weren’t aware you were making. Not with ink, but with mute shame and a weary hope. An invisible deal that said joy must justify itself. Every hour must pay rent in productivity. So now you run while listening to career podcasts instead of music that makes you happy. You read work tips during lunch instead of that novel you want to finish. That watercolour set gathering dust? Well, what’s the point if you’re not going to sell paintings online? This thinking is like eating only protein bars. We’re feeding ourselves nothing but career calories while our spirits slowly starve.  

Your Phone Stole Your Focus  

Here’s a hard truth: phones broke something basic in how we feel pleasure. Try this test. Sit down with a crossword puzzle or sketchbook. Just sit. See how long you can go before reaching for your phone. Most people can’t make it five minutes. We traded slow, deep joy for quick hits of digital pleasure. That quiet happiness you used to feel, solving a puzzle or learning a new song? Notifications and endless scrolling have crushed it.  

Research shows it takes 23 minutes to refocus after a digital break. Yet most people get interrupted every 11 minutes (Mark et al., 2008). The constant switching doesn’t just hurt focus. It changes brain structure. Heavy multitaskers have decreased density in the brain area that regulates emotions and thoughts (Loh & Kanai, 2014). Translation: We are losing our ability to concentrate deeply and experience genuine satisfaction. Now, boredom genuinely hurts. It’s a physical discomfort now, like your skin itches from stillness. When did sitting still become torture?  

Focus isn’t the only thing that’s broken. Our sense of self has been quietly taken over, too. And nowhere is this clearer than in how work now controls everything.  

When Work Became Everything  

Always On, Never Off  

Work isn’t just a job anymore. It buzzes on your nightstand. It lives in your pocket 24/7. The World Health Organisation officially named “burnout syndrome” as a work problem in 2019. They defined it as chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been handled well (WHO, 2019). But here’s the insane part: Americans check their work email 74 times every day. Even throughout weekends and holidays (Adobe, 2019). We’ve made “always on” a badge of honour.  

It’s a sign of a broken system.  

The cruellest part? When you finally try to pick up that dusty hobby, it feels like another task you’re failing at. Joy becomes another task on your to-do list. That’s modern life’s twisted joke: you need joy most when you can least feel it.  

Who Are You Without Your Job?  

Quick test: describe yourself for thirty seconds without mentioning work. Go ahead. Harder than expected, right? Unsettling, even.  

We’ve let productivity eat our personalities. You were born to be someone who writes silly poems, builds blanket forts, and gets excited about weird little things. That person didn’t disappear. They’re just buried under performance reviews and quarterly goals.  Why Your Brain Needs Pointless Things  

The Science of Joy  

Your nervous system doesn’t care about your work goals. It cares about balance. The kind of deep healing that only comes from doing something purely because it feels good. Flow states aren’t just feel-good nonsense. They’re real brain healing. When you lose yourself in painting, playing music, or building models, your brain enters repair mode. Stress hormones like cortisol drop significantly. Feel-good brain chemicals like dopamine increase (Csikszentmihalyi, 2008).  

Read More: Understanding Flow State and How It Drives Peak Performance

During these states, the brain part that constantly judges and analyses slows down. Scientists call this “transient hypofrontality” (Dietrich, 2004). Your inner critic takes a nap. This allows for a pure, unfiltered experience. Brain scans show that people in flow states have more activity in reward and motivation circuits. Similar to what happens during meditation (Ulrich et al., 2018). That’s not rest—it’s digital sedation. Flow restores; doom-scrolling depletes. The difference is everything.  

So, how do we reclaim that feeling, even in our overworked, under-rested lives? Not with grand plans—but with small, messy starts.  

Start Small and Messy  

Begin With the Stupid Version  

Forget big plans and perfect setups. Start with the messy version first. Doodle in meetings. Sing badly in your car. Write a three-sentence story no one will ever read. Take blurry photos of your coffee cup. Practice one chord for five minutes. The goal isn’t mastery. It’s remembering you’re allowed to suck at things for fun. This is not merely a hobby. It’s resistance. Every off-key song, every lopsided pottery bowl, every crooked sketch proves something important. Your worth doesn’t live in numbers. It lives in a mess. In trying. In joy.  

Set Your Boundaries 

Setting limits cannot be avoided by talking about them. Place your phone in another room while eating dinner. Disable work notifications after 8 p.m. Even if you’re only working on a puzzle on the floor, say you’re “busy”. Why are you “too tired” for activities after three hours of social media usage?  You’re not too tired. You’re just digitally drained. You have to break yourself out.  

Join Something Random  

Sign up for something random. Book club, hiking group, pottery class. Whatever calls to you. Not to network or build skills, but to remember what it’s like to be terrible at something alongside other terrible people. Hobby-based friendships hit differently. These are real connections built on shared fumbling and curiosity. Not work duties or family obligations. That’s rare these days. And precious.  

You Didn’t Lose It  

Everything Is Still There  

Here’s what you need to know: you’re not broken. You didn’t “outgrow” creativity. You didn’t “lose your artistic side.” It’s all still there, waiting. Your hands still remember how to hold a paintbrush. Your voice can still carry a tune. Probably not well, but who cares? You’re still the same person who used to lose yourself in making something from nothing. You’ve just forgotten how to permit yourself.  

Coming Home  

Last week, the sitar case was unzipped again. Just for fifteen minutes. Just for joy. Fingers cramped, half the techniques were forgotten, and the neighbours probably hated it. It was perfect. That strange mix of sadness and guilt from walking past it? Gone. Replaced by something almost forgotten: the quiet joy of doing something purely because it makes you feel alive.  

Your dusty hobby is calling, too. Not because it’ll make you money or pad your resume or improve your life in any measurable way. Because it’ll remind you who you are when nobody’s watching, paying, or keeping score. And honestly? That person has been waiting long enough. And maybe—just maybe—the silent corner doesn’t have to stay silent anymore.