Ask a room full of people what hobby they have and you willget as many answers as there are people. Others willconfess that they don't have a hobby. They probably do; butjust don't label it as such. By definition, a hobby is anactivity or interest pursued outside one's regularoccupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure.

Whether flying, stamp collecting, chat rooms, trains, softball,scrapbooking, golf, reading, painting, tap dancing, yard work, crafts, auto mechanics, music, huntingdown garage sales, sewing, fishing, cooking, boating, furniture refinishing, javelin tossing or a plethora of other activities or interests the key element is balance.You must find balance between your family life and yourextracurricular activities.

Too much of a good thing turns bad. Everyone should have anoutlet and a special interest that they enjoy doing forthemselves. Self indulgence, to a point, is quite healthy.Escaping from day to day grinds to take some time to devoteto your flying hobby or concentration is therapeutic. You've all heard, "if Mamma ain't happy, no one's happy." It doesn't matter if your role is father, mother, husband,wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, son, daughter, brother orsister, if you're just going to work or school and have noreal outside activities, you're probably not always the mostfriendly person to be around.

Conversely, if you bury yourself and it seems to others thatall you care about or all you ever want to do is fly all day(or hang around the airport), you're setting yourself up orprolonging discontent. People deal with depression in many ways. Some sleep all the time. Others want to do nothing butread,read, read. Still others will spend hours upon hoursdownstairs building a bigger, faster widget, just to avoidthe real cause of their frustrations. Hobbies are supposedto be a healthy outlet, not a catalyst to ignore issues thatneed addressing.

Likewise, hobbies can get very expensive. Sure, flying, snowmobiles, motorcycles and ski equipment are obviouslyexpensive. But sometimes those seemingly low costactivities can add up. You start out with trying to budgetfor the weekly flying lessons. Then you need (or want) theunnecessary (but fun) goodies that we all "need" to pursueour passion. "Let's see, do we pay the mortgage this month,or get that (fill in the blank) that you just have to have?"

If your flying hobby is doing more harm than good, if it's dipping into the family budget and time allocation, more than you can or should be spending, it's time to reevaluate. Not stop the flying, mind you, just make sureit's appropriate for you and your family and its lifestyle.

Yvonne Volante, webmaster for http://www.fixairplanes.com, is a big fan of flying and flight travel. She operates a web site that is devoted to flying and aviation resources. Email her at [email protected]