subject: The Different Things People Collect And Why Some People Turn A Hobby Into A Career [print this page] As long as people have been around, they have collected things. Years ago, they would only gathered food and other necessities needed for survival. Now, people collect different things that seem to give them pleasure or joy such as sewing machines or train horns or what things they think will earn them some money later on like expensive works of art. Being a collector of something is a small hobby to some or an all encompassing career to others. There are all different types and levels of collectors. in rare cases collectors become obsessed and this turns into the illness of a hoarder.
There are many ways to be a collector and some people start when they are only little children. If you ask any man in his 40's or 50's if he collected baseball cards as a young boy, a big percentage will probably say yes. Many times kids get involved in a phase or something that is fun or popular at the time and this turns into collecting. Another example of children collecting trendy things or toys are the beanie babies or the Pokemon trading cards. These were the things for kids to have at one point and many kids became collectors of them until the faze faded away.
Because so many children get interested in having a little collection of something at a certain point, this creates an activity for others to do as adults. For the majority of those kids, their collections fade out as they grow and mature but for others, collecting becomes something they love to do. People usually collect items that they are interested in, whether it is sports memorabilia of their hometown team or works of art by a certain artist.
What began as a hobby for many people, can also become a lucrative profession as well. The people that are very into collecting things, do everything they can to learn about that particular collectible. This can be a valuable resource for businesses that deal in collectibles by hiring a person that is so knowledgeable about a particular item. This can result on being hired by a big auction company like a famous auction house or by beginning their own business purchasing and selling certain collectibles or antiques, for example.
For some people, collecting and holding onto things become a mental illness called hoarding. People that hoard need to constantly attain things whether it is by shopping or even digging through others trash. It may be clothes or it can even be food but the main issue of a hoarder is that they can not part with anything and have an emotional attachment to all of the things that they bring into their home. Eventually the residence is filled from floor to ceiling with stuff that they can not control. A mental health professional is the only person who can assist a hoarder to reclaim a normal life again where they will not fill an emotional hole in their life with things.
