A colleague sent me one of your stories with a message that just said, “Have you read this?”
I hadn’t. I’ve read quite a few since, usually without commenting. This time I have something of my own to admit.
Rachel isn’t my real name. I’m an elementary school principal.
A teacher asked me what I do for fun the other day.
Just a friendly question. We were chatting.
I opened my mouth to answer and realized I didn’t have one.
The question came up during lunch.
Nothing serious.
A few of us were talking about weekends and one teacher mentioned hiking.
Another talked about baking.
Someone asked what I usually do when I’m not working.
I laughed and said:
“Recover.”
Everybody laughed too.
Then somebody asked:
“No, really. What do you do for fun?”
And I just stood there.
For fun?
I had nothing.
Not literally nothing.
I watch television.
I scroll on my phone.
I meet friends sometimes.
I go out for coffee.
Normal things.
But I knew that wasn’t what she meant.
She meant:
What do you enjoy doing?
What is yours?
What do you look forward to when nobody needs you?
And I realized I didn’t really know anymore.
That bothered me.
More than it probably should have.
Because I used to have hobbies.
Actual hobbies.
I used to paint.
Not well.
I wasn’t secretly talented or anything.
I just liked it.
I had a box of paints.
Cheap brushes.
A little table near the window.
Sometimes I would spend two hours making something that looked terrible and still feel happy afterward.
I used to read too.
Again, actual books.
Novels.
Mysteries.
Things where nobody was discussing instructional leadership.
Imagine.
I used to go to weekend markets.
Take pictures.
Try new recipes.
I had plants.
A lot of plants.
Too many plants.
At one point I knew the names of all of them.
Now I have one plant in my kitchen that survives mostly out of spite.
I don’t know when those things disappeared.
That is the weird part.
There wasn’t some dramatic moment where I packed everything away and said:
I am a principal now. No more personality.
It just happened.
Slowly.
Work got busier.
Evenings got shorter.
Weekends became catch-up time.
I stopped painting because I was tired.
Then I stopped buying paint because I wasn’t painting.
Then the box got moved into a closet.
Then I forgot it was there.
That is honestly how it happened.
A few weeks after that lunch conversation, I was cleaning out a closet at home.
I found the box.
Old paints.
Some completely dried out.
Brushes.
A little sketchbook.
I sat on the floor and looked through it.
And I had this strange feeling.
Not sadness exactly.
More like…
Oh.
I used to do this.
I had forgotten.
Not forgotten in the sense that I had no memory of painting.
Obviously I remembered.
I just stopped thinking of myself as someone who painted.
That felt different.
Like finding evidence of a person I used to know.
There were dates on some of the pages.
Seven years ago.
Nine years ago.
Before I became principal.
That detail did not help.
I sat there doing the timeline in my head.
I became principal.
Work got heavier.
Painting became occasional.
Then rare.
Then gone.
Reading went the same way.
Photography too.
Cooking became whatever takes twenty minutes.
Everything that required a little attention but gave me nothing useful back seemed to disappear first.
That sentence bothered me when I realized it.
Nothing useful back.
Because that is how I think now.
Useful.
Is this worth the time?
Do I need this?
Will this help?
Can I finish it quickly?
Everything has to justify itself.
At school, that makes sense.
Time matters.
You prioritize.
You make decisions.
You cannot spend an hour doing something with no purpose when six other things are waiting.
But somehow that thinking came home with me.
Now if I have a free afternoon, my brain immediately starts assigning tasks.
Laundry.
Groceries.
Emails.
Cleaning.
Meal prep.
Something for Monday.
Something I forgot Friday.
Then maybe I’ll relax.
Except “maybe” usually means no.
And if I actually sit down and do nothing, I feel guilty.
Not guilty like I committed a crime.
Just restless.
Like there is something I should be doing.
There usually is.
That is the problem.
There is always something you could be doing.
Especially if you are a principal.
The work is never really finished.
You just decide where to stop.
I think I forgot that stopping was allowed before everything was done.
Maybe hobbies disappeared because they do not solve anything.
Painting does not clear my inbox.
Reading a novel does not prepare Monday’s meeting.
Taking pictures does not help with staffing.
Going somewhere just because I feel like it produces absolutely nothing.
Which is probably why I need those things.
But for years I think I treated them like rewards.
Finish everything first.
Then you can read.
Catch up first.
Then go out.
Get through this week.
Then maybe paint on Saturday.
There was always another week.
Another deadline.
Another reason to wait.
Eventually the hobby wasn’t postponed anymore.
It just wasn’t part of my life.
I didn’t notice.
That scares me a little.
Because what else can disappear slowly without you noticing?
I’m not trying to turn this into some huge identity crisis.
I’m okay.
I like my job most days.
I have people I care about.
I do things outside work.
I’m not sitting alone in an empty house staring at the wall.
But when that teacher asked what I did for fun, I realized most of my free time had become recovery.
That is different from enjoyment.
I come home tired.
I eat.
I watch something.
I scroll.
I sleep.
Sometimes I meet someone for dinner.
Then Monday comes again.
There is nothing wrong with resting.
God knows I need it.
But at some point I started confusing:
I am not working
with:
I am living my own life.
Those are not the same thing.
You can spend an entire weekend not working and still somehow feel like you were only waiting for Monday.
I’ve done that.
Saturday morning feels like recovery from Friday.
Sunday afternoon becomes preparation for Monday.
That leaves maybe six hours where you are technically alive for yourself.
Very generous.
I started noticing how often I say:
“I don’t have time.”
Someone asks if I want to go somewhere.
“I don’t have time.”
Try something new?
“I don’t have time.”
Start painting again?
“When?”
And technically that feels true.
But then I look at the amount of time I spend scrolling because I am too tired to do anything else.
Apparently I do have some time.
I just don’t have much energy left.
That is probably more accurate.
And maybe that is the bigger issue.
The school does not only take hours.
It takes attention.
By the time I have free time, sometimes I don’t want to make another choice.
Even choosing a book feels like effort.
So I pick up my phone because the phone asks nothing from me.
Twenty minutes becomes an hour.
Then I go to bed.
Very fulfilling.
After I found the paints, I decided I was going to paint again.
Naturally, I immediately made it complicated.
I looked up supplies.
Watched videos.
Started comparing brushes.
Thought maybe I should take a class.
Thought about turning the spare room into a better space.
Within twenty minutes I had somehow turned a hobby into a project.
Classic.
Then I stopped myself.
I used the old brushes.
Bought four basic paints.
Sat at the kitchen table.
And made something horrible.
I’m serious.
It was supposed to be a landscape.
The mountain looked like bread.
The trees looked sick.
I nearly laughed myself out of the chair.
And it felt so good.
Not because I had “reconnected with my creativity.”
That sounds too nice.
It felt good because I was bad at something and nobody cared.
Nobody needed it to be better.
Nobody was evaluating it.
Nobody wanted a revised version by Friday.
There was no outcome.
No target.
No feedback.
I was just making a bad painting in my kitchen.
I had forgotten how nice that is.
At school, almost everything I do has consequences.
A decision affects someone.
An email needs the right wording.
A meeting has a purpose.
A conversation might matter later.
Even casual things can become something.
A hobby does not have to matter.
That might be the whole point.
I started reading again too.
Slowly.
The first night I read maybe eight pages.
Then I fell asleep.
Excellent progress.
But I kept the book beside the bed.
The next night, ten more.
No educational value whatsoever.
Nobody improved.
Beautiful.
A few weekends ago, I took my camera out.
I hadn’t used it properly in years.
At first I felt awkward.
I kept thinking:
What am I even taking pictures of?
Then I remembered there doesn’t have to be a reason.
I walked around for maybe an hour.
Took pictures of buildings.
Trees.
People’s dogs.
Coffee.
Nothing important.
I didn’t post them.
Didn’t edit most of them.
Didn’t turn it into content.
Just took pictures.
I think that part matters too.
Everything now seems to need an audience.
If you run, there is an app.
If you cook, take a picture.
If you travel, post it.
If you make something, share it.
I don’t want that.
I want something nobody at school knows I do.
That sounds weirdly protective.
But I like the idea of having parts of my life that are not public.
Not professional.
Not useful.
Not content.
Mine.
There is another thing I noticed after I started doing these things again.
I had more to talk about.
That sounds obvious.
But for years, when friends asked what was new, my answer was always school.
Something happening at work.
A problem.
A funny student story.
A staffing issue.
A ridiculous email.
Now I can say:
“I tried painting again.”
Or:
“I went somewhere with my camera.”
Or:
“I’m reading this book.”
Tiny things.
But they make me feel like there is still a life happening beside the school.
Not after the school.
Beside it.
I like that difference.
Because I do not want to wait until retirement to remember what I enjoy.
I’ve heard people say things like:
“When I retire, I’m going to travel.”
“When I retire, I’ll read more.”
“When I retire, I’m going to start gardening.”
“When I retire…”
Maybe.
But that is a long time to keep postponing yourself.
And what happens if you get there and have forgotten how to enjoy anything that does not involve being productive?
I don’t want that.
I also don’t think the solution is to fill every evening with activities.
That sounds exhausting.
I’m not building a hobby schedule.
Monday painting.
Tuesday reading.
Wednesday personality development.
No.
Some nights I will still sit on the sofa and scroll like a vegetable.
I accept that.
I just want hobbies to exist again as options.
I want to remember I am allowed to do things badly.
Slowly.
Pointlessly.
I want something in my week that nobody can ask me for.
Something that does not improve school.
Something that does not make me a better leader.
Something that would still be mine if tomorrow somebody removed my name from the office door.
Maybe that is why finding those paints affected me.
It wasn’t really about painting.
It was proof that there had once been a version of me who did things simply because she liked them.
I want to keep that woman around.
She does not need to become the most important part of my life.
I just don’t want to find her in a closet again seven years from now.
So that is my confession.
I forgot I had hobbies.
Not completely.
Just enough that work became the main thing I knew how to do.
I’m trying to fix that.
Or maybe “fix” is the wrong word.
See?
There I go again.
I’m trying to enjoy things again.
That’s all.
I’d like to know if other school leaders have experienced this.
Did you ever suddenly realize something you used to love had disappeared from your life?
What did you stop doing when leadership got busy?
And have you ever tried to go back to it?
I would also like to know what The Good Principal thinks about something else.
How do you protect interests that have no practical value when your work always has something more urgent waiting?
Because I know school will always have another task.
The painting will not demand anything from me.
Maybe that is exactly why I need to choose it sometimes.
Thank you for giving us somewhere to talk about the parts of ourselves we did not mean to leave behind.
— Rachel
FROM THE GOOD PRINCIPAL’S OFFICE
Rachel, the line that probably deserves the most attention is this:
“Most of my free time had become recovery.”
That is different from having a life outside work.
And it can happen very quietly.
You are technically off duty.
You are home.
You are not answering emails.
But all you have enough energy to do is recover from the workday so you can repeat it tomorrow.
That is not a personal failure.
Some seasons of leadership are genuinely demanding.
There will be weeks when rest is the only reasonable plan.
The problem is when recovery becomes the permanent shape of life outside school.
Work.
Recover.
Work.
Recover.
Eventually the school is still determining what happens even during the hours when you are not there.
That is probably why hobbies matter more than they sometimes seem to.
Not because everyone needs to become interesting.
Not because principals require a carefully curated life outside leadership.
And certainly not because hobbies are another tool for preventing burnout.
Sometimes the most important thing about a hobby is precisely that it has no professional purpose.
It belongs to a different part of you.
You paint because you want to paint.
You read because you want to know what happens next.
You take photographs because something caught your eye.
That is enough.
And I think you noticed another important shift.
You had started evaluating personal time with the same logic you use at work:
What does this accomplish?
That question is useful in leadership.
It can be destructive when applied to everything else.
Not every hour needs an outcome.
Not everything you do needs to improve you.
And some of the most restorative parts of being human are inefficient by design.
You can spend two hours making a terrible painting.
From a productivity perspective, that is ridiculous.
From a human perspective, maybe those two hours belonged completely to you.
That is not wasted time.
There is also something significant about being bad at something.
Principals spend a great deal of time in a role where competence matters.
People expect judgment.
Preparation.
Professionalism.
You cannot simply shrug at a serious decision and say:
“I’m terrible at this, but I had fun.”
So having a part of life where failure carries absolutely no consequence can be freeing.
Bad painting.
Burned dinner.
Poor tennis.
A terrible photograph.
Nobody suffers.
Nobody needs a meeting.
Nothing needs correcting.
You simply try again or do not.
That is a kind of freedom leadership does not offer very often.
You also identified another issue correctly.
Sometimes “I don’t have time” really means:
“Work receives so much of my attention that I have very little usable energy left.”
Those are different problems.
If time is genuinely unavailable, the answer may be scheduling.
But if energy is the problem, forcing yourself into another demanding activity may only create one more obligation.
That is why returning to an old hobby can be easier when you deliberately lower the standard.
Not:
I’m getting back into painting.
That already sounds like a commitment.
Maybe:
I’m going to paint for twenty minutes because I feel like it.
Not:
I’m becoming a reader again.
Maybe:
I’ll read ten pages tonight.
Not:
I need a photography project.
Take the camera somewhere.
See what happens.
Hobbies often disappear partly because adults make them too serious.
We turn enjoyment into improvement.
Then improvement becomes another responsibility.
You already caught yourself doing it when you started researching supplies and classes.
That is worth remembering.
The goal is not to become impressive at leisure.
It is to recover the ability to do something without needing it to justify itself.
There is another part of your story I would protect:
you did not post the photographs.
That may seem minor.
It is not.
There is something healthy about having experiences that do not need an audience.
A private interest.
A private pleasure.
Something you do that nobody at school knows about and nobody online needs to validate.
Leadership makes so much of your life visible.
People know your decisions.
Your words.
Your position.
Your schedule.
Your presence.
Having a few things that simply belong to you can help remind you that not every part of your identity needs to be public.
And that connects directly to this category:
Behind the Position.
Because the question is not only:
What does the principal do when she is not working?
It is:
What remains when the principal role is not the organizing force of the day?
A person who paints badly.
A reader.
A photographer.
Someone who likes markets.
Someone who keeps plants alive.
Or tries to.
Those things may look small beside school leadership.
That does not make them less important.
Their importance comes from the fact that they do not depend on your position.
If you changed jobs tomorrow, they could come with you.
If you retired, they could stay.
If the school had a terrible week, they would still be yours.
That is worth protecting.
I also think your worry about postponing everything until retirement is reasonable.
People sometimes treat personal life as something waiting on the other side of work.
Later.
When things calm down.
When this school year finishes.
When this project is over.
When staffing settles.
When the inspection is done.
When I retire.
But school has an endless ability to produce the next reason.
There may never be a perfectly clear stretch of life where nothing urgent exists.
So perhaps hobbies survive only when they are not asked to compete on urgency.
They will lose every time.
The email feels urgent.
The book does not.
The staffing problem has consequences.
The camera does not.
The meeting needs preparation.
The painting does not care whether you ever return.
If you always choose based on what is demanding attention, school wins.
That means sometimes you have to choose the quiet thing precisely because it will never demand to be chosen.
Not every night.
Not irresponsibly.
Just often enough that your life does not become a collection of obligations plus recovery time.
There is one practical question that might help:
What did I used to enjoy before I started asking whether I had time for it?
Not:
What new hobby should I get?
You may not need a new one.
There may already be pieces of yourself sitting in closets.
Old books.
A camera.
A guitar.
Gardening tools.
Running shoes.
A recipe notebook.
Something you stopped touching because life got busy.
You do not have to reclaim all of it.
Choose one.
See whether it still feels like yours.
If it does, make a little room.
And if it does not?
That is okay too.
You are allowed to change.
The goal is not rebuilding an old version of yourself exactly as she was.
It is making sure the current version of you has something in her life besides responsibility.
And Rachel, there is another sentence from your confession I would keep:
“I want something that would still be mine if tomorrow somebody removed my name from the office door.”
That is probably the heart of it.
School leadership can be meaningful without being the sole container of identity.
The school gets your skill.
Your judgment.
Your effort.
Your care.
It does not need to be the only place where you feel alive.
So use the bad paints.
Read eight pages.
Take pictures nobody will ever see.
Let the hobby remain useless.
Maybe useless is exactly what makes it yours.
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