Hobbies post Witness-still feel guilty about the time and expense involved?

Thechickennest

My dear wife says she has a hard time investing time and money towards hobbies. My wife was born in to the organization. She says she still has a difficult time not feeling guilty about activities that would take one away from the preaching work, even though she has made her exit from the organization a long time ago. In my opinion it is just another area that the JW organization ruins people for life with its indoctrinations.

Black Sheep

My JW wife is not as tight with time and money for hobbies as she used to be, but I suspect this is just a ruse to make the WT seem less cultish that it is.

She still won't give up a meeting to do something with me unless we are on holiday out of town.

Cheers
Chris

Mysterious

Is that her guilt though Black Sheep or her fear of what others might think of her?

sass_my_frass

I honestly don't know how I found the time to go to those meetings and out on the preach. I guess I just didn't have anything else in my life. I was instantly relieved when I stopped all those time-wasting activities. These days I love expensive and time-hungry hobbies.

S3RAPH1M

One of the activities that makes a human being balanced, in my opinion, is having a hobby. Without hobbies what does one do with their time???

flipper

CHICKENNEST- I never even fely guilty about my hobbies when I was a witness. People would try to make me feel guilty- but I was always an independent, individualist who said, " Screw em' ". LOL! Among my hobbies are camping, backpacking, looking for Bigfoot, collecting blues and rock n' roll CD's, golfing, playing scrabble with my wife, fishing, buying and collecting art prints from the 1900 to 1935 time period. I love mountain prints, waterfalls, lakes, rivers, moonlight , also fishing prints, hunting prints, animals including deer, bear, mountain lions, etc, etc. So not much time including running my business to be thumping Bibles to people ! LOL! Life is meant to be lived and experienced ! Peace out, Mr. Flipper

StAnn

This topic shocked me, believe it or not. It never dawned on my until this moment that my extreme frugality and reluctance to have a hobby that costs money might be anything other than genetic tightwaddery. Not only do I not "waste" money on hobbies, I insist that all of my hobbies generate income or reduce outlay! For example, I've done crafting because I enjoy it but mostly because it makes gift-giving cheaper. I love history and so, to indulge this love, I got a job at a living history museum selling tickets and giving tours on the weekend! I actually made money at my hobby!

This JWism goes even deeper than I realized.

str8?so is spaghetti..until you heat it up

Nope.

Love filling my time and using my money to do things I WANT TO DO.

Its about damn time.

Not to mention its great to be able to study some human philosophies to. The existentialists were/are clever men (not that I subscribe to existentialism in its entirety).

Gotta shake the Dub guilt! We don't deserve it, we deserve to enjoy our lives.

Superfine Apostate

i never felt guilty about spending time/money for hobbies. always played in a band and spent my money on instruments/gear, went to concerts even when they were on a meeting day and with few exceptions never turned in more than 8 hours a month.

that's the only thing i sometimes felt guilty about, not writing a big number on the time-slip.

Satanus

Wt corp teaches us to put ourselves and our interests second, third, or even fourth. As a jw, i often felt like i should be somewhere else, rather than where i was, and doing something else rather than what i was doing, w the idea that doing 'spiritual' things was better than mundane/secular things. It took me yrs to get to the point where i let myself go to just do what i like doing, and do so without guilt. Live in/for the present, not in the future.

S

Hobbies post Witness-still feel guilty about the time and expense involved?

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