If everyone your age is at the club and you're home with a book and candles, you're not boring, you're just operating on a different frequency.
I used to think something was wrong with me.
While people my age were bar hopping and staying out until 3 AM, I'd be at home making elaborate dinners or reading about Stoic philosophy. My idea of a perfect Saturday night involved good wine, a challenging cookbook, and absolutely zero social obligation.
Then I worked in luxury hospitality and met people of all ages. The guests who seemed most content weren't the ones constantly seeking the next thrill. They were the ones who found genuine satisfaction in quiet pursuits.
They'd spend mornings sketching in notebooks, afternoons reading by the pool, evenings having deep conversations over slow dinners. Age didn't matter. Some were 30, some were 70. What they shared was this quality people call being an "old soul."
If your relaxation hobbies feel out of step with people your age, you might be one too. Here are eight hobbies that consistently show up.
1) Reading for depth, not escape
Old souls read to engage with ideas, not to forget reality.
During my three years in Bangkok, I'd spend evenings reading philosophy, history, biographies. Not for any formal reason. Because I was genuinely curious about how people thought, why civilizations rose and fell, what patterns repeated across human experience.
The reading itself is a ritual. Making tea, settling into a comfortable spot, giving the book your full attention. No multitasking, no scrolling between chapters. Just you and the text.
People who relax this way often have trouble explaining it to others. "I just read" sounds boring. But they're not just consuming words. They're actively thinking, questioning, connecting ideas.
2) Cooking elaborate meals for yourself
Old souls treat cooking as meditation, not obligation.
Making a complex dish when you could order takeout seems inefficient. But for old souls, efficiency isn't the point. The process is the point.
I learned this in professional kitchens, but I really understood it living alone in Thailand. Cooking elaborate meals just for myself became how I processed my days. The ritual of preparing food, the creativity of combining flavors, the satisfaction of sitting down to something I'd made with care.
Old souls often experiment with new cuisines and techniques. They'll spend a Sunday making stock from scratch or attempting a dish they've never made before, just to see if they can.
3) Journaling or writing
Old souls are natural self-examiners. They need to process their thoughts in a way that goes beyond just thinking about them.
This isn't about keeping a diary of daily events. It's about working through ideas, emotions, observations. Why did that conversation bother me? What pattern am I noticing? What did I learn from that experience?
The blank page becomes a space where they can be completely honest without worrying about how others will receive their thoughts.
4) Spending time in nature, alone
Not the Instagram version of nature. The version where you sit still, watch birds, notice how light changes through trees, let your mind settle into the rhythm of the environment.
Walking without earbuds. Sitting by water without your phone. Hiking trails not to hit a fitness goal but to be somewhere that feels larger than your daily concerns.
I do this in Austin. There are trails near my place where I'll walk for hours, sometimes not seeing another person. No agenda, no destination. Just moving through space and letting thoughts come naturally.
Old souls come back from time in nature feeling reset in a way that nothing else quite achieves.
5) Playing or listening to music intentionally
Old souls engage with music as a primary activity, not background noise.
They'll sit and listen to an entire album without doing anything else. Or they'll spend hours learning to play an instrument, not to perform for others, but because making music satisfies something fundamental.
I've met people who collect vinyl specifically because it forces you to listen to full albums in order. Others who learn classical guitar at 40 because they finally have time to do something purely for the joy of it.
Whether playing or listening, old souls use music to enter a state that feels almost spiritual. It's relaxation through deep engagement rather than distraction.
6) Creating art nobody will see
Old souls make things for the sake of making them.
Painting, drawing, pottery, woodworking. They create not because they're trying to build a portfolio or start a side business. Because the act of creating is inherently satisfying.
These aren't people posting everything they make on social media. They might share occasionally, but mostly they create privately. A sketchbook full of drawings no one will see. Pottery that lives in their own kitchen.
The process is the reward. Hours disappear while they're focused on making something.
7) Long walks without a destination
Old souls will walk through their neighborhood, downtown, anywhere really. Not going to or from anything. Just walking to walk.
During my years in Bangkok, this became my primary activity. I'd walk for three or four hours, no map, no plan. Down side streets, through markets, past temples. Watching people, noticing architecture, letting my mind process whatever it needed to process.
Walking provides rhythm that thinking needs. Your body is occupied with simple repetitive motion, which frees your mind to work through complex things.
Old souls are the people you see walking slowly, clearly not rushing anywhere. Stopping to look at something that caught their attention. Sitting on a bench for 20 minutes watching the world move.
8) Deep conversations over slow meals
Small talk exhausts old souls. Surface-level socializing at big parties feels like work. But sitting with one or two people over a meal that lasts hours, talking about what really matters? That energizes them.
These are the dinner parties that start at 7 PM and end at midnight. Not because people are drinking heavily. Because the conversation is so engaging that no one notices time passing.
Old souls ask questions that others might consider too personal. What are you afraid of? What do you believe about consciousness? What experience changed how you see the world?
They're not being pretentious. They genuinely want to understand how other people think and experience life.
The meal itself matters too. Good food, prepared with care, consumed slowly. Old souls understand that breaking bread together creates intimacy in a way that meeting for coffee never quite achieves.
What this means
If several of these hobbies describe how you relax, you're probably an old soul.
That doesn't make you better than anyone else. Just different. Operating with values and interests that don't always align with your peer group.
Old souls often felt like outsiders growing up. Preferring books to parties, deep conversations to casual hangouts, solitary pursuits to group activities. They might have worried something was wrong with them.
But there's nothing wrong with finding relaxation in contemplative, creative, meaningful activities. These hobbies engage you at a level that mindless entertainment never could.
The challenge is owning it without apologizing. Stop explaining your weekend plans like they're boring. Stop feeling like you should want to do what everyone else is doing.
Find other old souls. They're out there, quietly reading in coffee shops, walking through parks, cooking elaborate meals in their apartments. When you connect with someone who gets this way of being, it's remarkably easy.
If your idea of relaxation involves books, cooking, nature, music, art, walking, and deep conversation, lean into that. Those hobbies aren't making you old before your time. They're keeping you connected to what actually matters to you.
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