My end of January recap consists of... inaction. I didn't really do a whole lot this January. And I feel fine.

Winter is usually my "calm season," since I'm not involved in any official sports. I spend my Mondays and Wednesdays bowling, and every other day is wild with opportunity. I usually get into a weird funk, though, due to this inaction. I find that I'm very.. not bored, but maybe a bit restless. There hasn't been much for me to do. I'm very innately stressed (just from everything; people say that I'm just constantly stressed out, and this is true) and it causes me to not be in the best health most of the time. But, this winter I decided that I'm going to fill my time with things that I care about, and it's been going very, very well.

I joined a Splatoon team, which has been neat. We're called the Shooting Starfish, and as long as I'm having fun, I don't really mind what the results come out to be. Sure, it can be frustrating to lose, but I like focusing more on honing the few skills I have and being a good anchor for my team. Other than that, I've been playing a lot of Minecraft this month with my friends. I'm finally in a spot where I have good internet and a strong enough computer that I can host a world for me and my friends. It's been really fun! I'm grateful that I have enough people in my life to where I can justify making a server instead of just running a world through Essential (which is another pain in the ass entirely).

But, more to the title of the blog, the main thing I've seen through this period of inaction is that it causes a lot of problems for people who just can't find anything to do. I'm using to being busy up to my neck all throughout the Fall and Spring, so I'm never really "free" to do anything. But, looking around now at all the people who are free all the time is that they don't really have something to DO (not to be repetitive, but there really is a point).

Nobody has hobbies! (For reference, I am a senior in high school) There are all of these girls in my class (mainly girls, because boys usually pick up things like sports or video games where I live) who have nothing better to do with their time. It makes me sad. If I had no hobbies I would be completely void of any emotion. Or, maybe I would be full of it. Hobbies are good for the soul! Even just coloring for fun can completely change the way you view your freetime. I saw this a lot through COVID and the one day TikTok ban. There were so many people posting around being like "well, what are we going to do now?"...

...You're going to pick up a hobby, Goddammit! Stop wasting your time scrolling on your phone, ignoring all of the people in your life, shortening your attention span, etc etc etc. And I'm not saying I'm innocent. This entire blogpost is super duper UBER hypocritical of me. But, our parents were right. It's these damn phones. Inaction causes all of my problems.