My elderly neighbor, a quiet 78-year-old woman, started getting visits from a young man, and the screams I heard afterward worried me—until I knocked one day and she opened the door in a karate kimono. She’d taken up martial arts for fun. That same year, a man who kept staring at me on the subway turned out to be admiring my knitting, and we ended up becoming friends. My family, meanwhile, keeps dragging me on chaotic mountain camping trips full of bears, floods, and overturned boats, yet every summer I somehow agree to go again.

People around me have the most unexpected hobbies: making toys when stores don’t have what kids want, crocheting through boxes of yarn, writing plays that end up on real stages, or turning chores into relaxing rituals like cooking, yoga, and organizing. Some rediscover childhood skills—like catching every toy from a claw machine and handing them out to cheering kids—or shift from sports to gentler pastimes when their bodies demand it. Others stick with lifetime passions, like fishing, even when the whole family refuses to pay for something they grew up eating for free.

Many find joy in creative pursuits with no intention of becoming famous. A librarian paints memories from her village roads, someone grows strawberries so good that restaurants now buy them, and another rescues half-dead office plants and watches them flourish. From homemade sausages crafted in a simple oven to an 84-year-old grandmother who does her nails every day, hobbies become little celebrations of identity and happiness.

Some people build entire lifestyles around what they love: an accountant who lives in a dorm so he can afford global mountaineering trips, a car-airbrushing enthusiast who turned a pastime into a job his parents still don’t understand, and crafters who restore dollhouses just because it brings them peace. Together, these stories show how ordinary people find extraordinary joy in the things that light them up.