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You can learn new things. Pixel art, touch typing, 3d modelling, music, calligraphy, wood working, knitting, a language. Whatever is practical and calls to you, you can learn.

In the long term, learning new things is fun and makes life richer in ways you can’t even imagine, and it’s a time investment that will pay dividends for life as these skills never really go away. There are even social aspects, as you’ll quite literally become a more interesting person to talk to.

It requires some time, usually up to an hour a day. That’s genuinely too much for some people, and if you work 80 hour weeks and/or have infants ricocheting around your home like screaming DVD logos, then you may want to put this ambition aside for now and deal with that instead. If on the other hand you spend any amount of time each day scrolling your phone while Netflix plays something you’re half-watching on a screen across the room, you do have time!

There’s many (bordering on too many) learning resources out there for almost anything, on youtube, on reddit, on wikis, in books. You’ll want to avoid overloading on information when starting out, just find some starting point that doesn’t look like a sales funnel and go from there, at your own pace.

Many adults haven’t done this in a while, and many haven’t ever done self-directed study, so it’s time for some expectation management:

While you practice the thing you want to learn, you will not feel good, especially not starting out . This honestly is a bit of an understatement, it really sucks and depending on the task, odds are you may want to lie down for a bit when you’re done with your first practice session. You’ll also almost certainly perform significantly worse toward the end of the session. All this is your brain and muscles getting tired. It’s a good meta-skill to learn to self-assess and pick up on this.