Get a Hobby

T's parting advice in our two hour discussion of my resume and job search, was to add a hobby or service activity as a last line in my resume.  I'd like to work at small companies, of around 100 employees, and anyone hiring there is also looking for cultural fit, not just skills.

To my surprise, you can have cultural fit while your hobbies are different from those of anyone already working there.  I'm gathering that cultural fit is about intensity:

• Do you have an enthusiasm for life and your community that is similar to that of people already working there?  Or really, can you present that same youthful energized enthusiasm that people already working there envision for themselves?

Cultural fit does show 

• sedentary vs. active
• intellectual vs. consumable
• mainstream vs. geeky

During months 3-6 of my divorce process, alongside my grief about what felt like was being ripped away, I caught the vision of hope about reinventing my life.  I tried things and spent time on things I enjoy, that had been sidelined during the years of my marriage.  Not because my ex was any kind of controlling bastard, but that in the course of things, hobbies and interests that I have, and he doesn't, were de-emphasized during the marriage.  

Thus began the experiments.  I wore colors I love that he hated.  I cut my hair.  I took up social dance.  I put together costumes for theme balls.  I rode my bike.

I've hesitated to claim my new hobbies, because I haven't been doing them that long.  I haven't yet cycled a century.  I'm just learning to dance.  If you talk to be about these things, you'll know that I have little experience.  But if you talk to me about these things, you'll know I'm excited about them, and you'll probably feel my excitement about them too.  So I declare: the qualifier on claiming a hobby is not how expert you are, as there's always someone who knows more.  The qualifier is that you are actively enthusiastic in it.