The more interests you have, the happier you will be. Imagine if one of your hobbies is analyzing clouds, or cumulonimbuses for the scientifically savvy. You could step outside any time during the day and entertain yourself for hours. There are so many things around us that our minds tend to filter things out so we can focus on more important tasks. If we stopped to admire everything, we’d probably never get anything done!
Income diversification is important during weak economic times since you never know when one stream might dry up. However, the funny thing is that I’ve never purposely thought about creating new income streams for the purpose of diversification until this year. Instead, my diverse interests have lead me to have a diverse amount of income! It never occurred to me to count up my non-job income and figure out what percent it is of total income. But, as I started adding things up, I was amazed to realize some months would regularly achieve 25% and up to 50% of my gross base salary!