the art of being bored
let’s bring it back ;)
Last week, I did something I haven’t done in…. Months? Maybe years? I actually couldn’t tell you. It was early morning and I just poured my coffee into my favorite mug. Instead of going upstairs to read, write, or start the day in some “productive” way, I decided to sit on the couch and let my sleepy puppy lay in my lap. I didn’t have a book within reach and my phone was upstairs. I had no pen, no paper, and the blinds weren’t even open yet. It was just me and my thoughts… for a whole hour. Of course I could have gotten up at any point, but instead I just sat there and stared at the wall.
I was properly bored.
The first few minutes of this my head was spinning with ideas of how I could be filling my time, but after a while I settled into… nothingness? I have to say, it was quite nice. I always battle these feelings of “laziness” or being “unproductive” when I choose stillness, and this time I let those thoughts come, and then I let them go, knowing that spending an hour of my day doing nothing didn’t make me a lesser human.
Ironically, this hour of boredom might have unlocked something incredibly valuable.
As I sat there, I let myself experience how soft and snuggly my puppy was. I looked at the horrible floral wallpaper on the walls, and the beautiful dark trim around the windows. I observed the peeling paint on the fireplace, the dirty rug, and the dog toys strewn about. I let gratitude grow within me for the things that were tangible and won’t always be, because this puppy will soon be far too big to fit in my lap, and we won’t live in this house forever.
said puppy and ugly wallpaper
Do you remember the last time you felt bored and let yourself continue to feel bored for an extended period of time? Maybe not. A lot of you reading this will probably harken back to a time as a kid when being bored was sort of standard fare. You might use those experiences like a suit of armor, trying in some subconscious way to prove that you have already paid your dues - that you somehow are protected from an epidemic that has taken our world by storm- distraction.
Yes, we all are just big babies, wailing and throwing fits when we feel a little bit uncomfortable with the opportunity to sit still, experience silence, or be alone with our thoughts. And we will all take pretty much any measure, even if it’s damaging to us, to escape these opportunities. In this video about boredom from Harvard Business Review, Arthur Brooks mentions a study that his colleague did in which participants were placed in a room with nothing to do for fifteen minutes. The only possible distraction was pushing a button that would administer a painful shock. The subjects knew this and often chose the electric shock over experiencing boredom. You might read this and think, “That’s crazy. I would never choose to harm myself over being bored.” Well, I’d challenge you to look at your habits and routines and be honest with yourself about how often you mindlessly exchange opportunities for silence, contemplation, and presence for activity, movement, or noise.
Distraction can come in many forms -
The most obvious form plaguing society at the moment is, you guessed it, screens. In a conversation with my cousin a few nights ago, we deemed screens as the “adult baby pacifier”. We both laughed, but it’s actually very sad when you think about it. We are shoving these screens in our faces to shut our minds up and off instead of taking time to figure out the cause of our crying.
You can’t ever really care for yourself if you never take the time to listen to yourself.
But distraction can also be disguised as productive or healthy things, stuff that our culture actually celebrates and gives you a pat on the back for. This list below contains many good things, but like most everything in life, if overused or mis-prioritized they can easily become life sucking instead of life giving.
Working yourself to death for the sake of providing for your family, being deemed successful, or not “wasting your potential”. For most of us, healing our relationship with work often requires healing something much deeper within, and for that I would recommend therapy ;)
Endlessly listening to podcasts or reading books to constantly try to improve some area of your life. Sometimes you just need to learn through living, my friend.
Listening to music when you work, when you shower, when you drive, when you cook, when you run, when you write, when you eat your meals. Living your life in silence is harder than you might think.
GOOGLING every. Single. Thing. That comes into your mind or up in conversation. I do this, you do this, we allllll do this. But next time a question comes up, try using your memory or practice asking yourself if it’s actually important that you know the answer.
Those dang news alerts or constant check-ins that are keeping you “informed”. I would argue that being a consumer of a news cycle that has been skillfully designed to keep you coming back is only making you more complacent and fearful. (anxiety and hopelessness is not a pretty mix. Been there done that, don’t need to do it again)
My friends and I often talk about becoming more “present” and “slowing down” and I sometimes wonder what that actually means. I say it a lot, but I experience it far less. After staring at those wallpapered walls for an hour, I’m starting to think that experiencing the present moment requires us to not just slow down, but to stop. FULL STOP. And it might just require us to practice the art of boredom.
*Cue staring out the car window at the rain, pretending I’m in a Kelly Clarkson music video.
xoxo