In the days of yore, we humans would dedicate our lives to mostly running away from saber-tooth tigers, crafting weapons and apparel, and gathering whatever berries we can find in our vicinity.
Nowadays, the berries you can get in a local supermarket, the saber-tooth tigers wouldn’t survive the climate change even if they did exist (or they would end up prostrate and minus their intestines on the living room floor of a Russian oligarch), and buying clothes is as simple as going online and doing some button-pushing.
Now that most of the existentially-crucial aspects of our lives have already been taken care of for us, having a ‘side-quest’ we can embark on (other than our work) has become an important valve to let off some steam from a mundane existence many people find themselves living through day by day.
We’re talking about hobbies, of course.
Whether it’s learning Mongolian just for the sake of it, painting, attempting to learn the drums, or collecting all of the postal stamps from former Yugoslavia and Zimbabwe, hobbies represent a way to get in touch with your primal nature in a way, and do what you instinctively feel inclined to do.
In this article, we’ll talk about gardening as a hobby.
As you will see, even if you haven’t got ten green digits on your hands already, there are some pretty strong arguments for going down this route, so to speak. The benefits of gardening as a hobby are numerous and here, we will list some of the most important ones.
Here’s the deal.
Abandoning Perfectionism
One of the biggest self-inflicted mental blockades that hamper a lot of people is the so-called ‘perfectionism’.
It’s both an excuse not to do something in the first place (because you feel like you can never reach perfection), and a belief that something cannot be done at all.
So, what gardening does to help battle this toxic mindset is it forces you to get your hands dirty, do your work planting the seeds, weeding, and so forth, and then hope for the best.
There aren’t any guarantees in gardening about how well your tomatoes will look when they are fully grown, so getting your fingers green means you have to think positively and hope for the best – by default.
Gardening Encourages Patience
The most valuable life skill you will learn with gardening is patience.
Nothing worthwhile happens overnight, which is obvious with plants, so keeping your garden tidy and well-watered will teach you to do a little bit of work every day to have a big payoff later on.
So, gardening effectively rewires your brain to look forward to meaningful rewards down the road, rather than pursuing activities that grant you instant gratification.
Physical Exercise
Even if you have a fairly small garden, taking care of it will inevitably mean doing some digging, planting, raking, and watering on a regular basis.
As you know already, physical exercise represents by far the best natural way to tackle depression and lift your spirits.
By taking up gardening, you will inevitably end up doing some exercise every time you pick up the trowel or a shovel, and chances are – you won’t even notice you’ve been practically working out when your focus is on your garden’s flora. (Which is great for folks who hate exercising in a gym or doing repetitive workouts, in general.)
Stress Reduction
… that you get from doing something you love is always far better than swallowing loads of pills to achieve the same effect.
With gardening, the stress reduction effects are obvious thanks to the fact that you’re getting in touch with nature, as well as doing some valuable work, too.
Indeed, picking up your trusty garden hose for watering your cucumbers, or whipping out a trowel to tackle some weeds that are growing where they aren’t supposed to grow, will get you in a Zen state of mind that can help you forget about the outside world for a couple of hours.
Healthy Food
… would be an obvious by-product of pursuing gardening as your hobby.
Not only are you enjoying the ‘journey’ of planting the seeds and watching them grown, but you will also get to eat the fruits (or vegetables) of your labor, too.
In today’s world of genetically-modified foods, being able to grow your own fruits ‘n’ veggies is a valuable skill with far-reaching benefits.
From being able to produce home-made ketchup from your very own home-grown tomatoes to learning patience and hopefulness, gardening is a hobby that you can’t go wrong with if you pick it up. As long as you put in a little effort to make your garden work, you are sure to see some results soon enough.
Sarah Jessica Smith is a young blogger from Sydney. She is in love with life and all the things that can make her daily routine easier. She loves to write about home improvement, lifestyle, and all the small things that make life such a great adventure.
