Hobbies Bring Happiness

Leaving my last period of school, I saw that I had an hour before rugby practice and decided to walk over to Union Station.

Heading toward the food court, I saw a man with an Amtrak hat on and decided to say hello.

As it turned out, he was working as a conductor and had just gotten off a train to DC, which is why he’d stopped to eat.

His name was Rich, and he was from New Jersey where he’d grown up.

Sitting down with him, we talked about what it's like to go from city to city every day, and he said that he loves it.

Rich has been doing it for 12 years, mostly along the East Coast; though he hadn’t really grown up with the idea of conducting in mind, Rich found it to be an awesome job.

Most importantly, he said that this job allowed him to meet new people and see new faces very frequently, letting him have different experiences all the time.

Meet Rich

What brings him joy?

While his job as a conductor sounded pretty interesting, he said that his biggest source of joy was enjoying his hobbies in his free time.

He said that things like working out and playing sports are always great outlets for work and any other stressful things.

Not only that, but they are similar to his job as a conductor in that they let him regularly interact with good people and good energy, thus bringing him a lot of joy.

Oftentimes, he said, we just need something to help us decompress.

Therefore, hobbies are the perfect way to do that, which I thought was completely true.