I Miss Being Bored

When I was 10 years old, one random Saturday I wrote on my calendar 'the most boring day of my life' and circled it three times. I walked around aimlessly, I bounced a ball at the living wall and just whinged to my parents that I was bored. All my friends were busy. It was probably bad weather so I couldn't play outside and I generally felt very down in the dumps and unmotivated. I couldn't wait to get back to school on Monday.

Fast forward 18 years, and I can't remember the last time I was actually 'bored'. Can you?

We all know those meetings that drone on and on. If they're virtual, we can always just carry on with something else on another tab. Hell, I've completed multiple life admin tasks on just one call: do an Amazon order, pay my electricity bill and reply to e-mails. I didn't have to be 'bored', I can do anything else (or just step away completely with my camera off).

When we're in a queue, we used to talk to one another, stare into space, or chew gum. Now, we don't need to do any of that, as we have all the world's knowledge at our fingertips right there in our pockets, ready to entertain us like a dancing monkey whenever we need it. This provides some momentary relief at the time, especially if you're exhausted from work and you just want the time to pass in the queue and go home, but have you ever wondered how that time could have been spent instead?

Why should we learn to be bored more often, as adults? We don't nearly reflect as much anymore, and not giving our brain a pause (unless we're sleeping) means we rarely give ourselves time to figure out what matters to us the most. I don't feel as creative, or original, as I used to be and I don't have that intellectual curiosity as I used to, as I can just google whatever I need whenever.

With TikTok, Instagram and YouTube steering towards short-form content, we can be entertained within 5 seconds, with all platforms gearing for our attention. Fast-talking, bright colours and animations make sure that we're not able to look away even for 1 second, giving them more and more views and making them more and more money. They are all fighting for our attention. Have you ever 'phantom reached' for your phone when it's not there? Or 'phantom tapped' the icon for Instagram, when you've deleted it? Scary.

I've managed to reflect upon this notion of 'never switching off'. I purposely don't run with my phone, and I found it far more difficult than expected. Running is a very monotonous task, and I'm not good at it. Whilst I'm sweating away, all I can think is 'I want to do something else' but I can't. I feel trapped. I get agitated. I get annoyed. I start having thoughts such as 'I'm rubbish at running away, why am I even here' or 'I'll never be as good as them'. Do you ever think that as a kid, or did you just run for the pure hell of it? Why? Because you had no other options to run whilst you were running.

I treat it as a meditative exercise now. This must be why journalling is so useful too, as there's something magical about just putting pen to paper. Your thoughts are forced to slow down, you have to think more, and there's less editing (you can't just hit backspace, you have to cross words out yourself). When everyone is fighting for your attention, you need to have the discipline to fight back. To put your hand up and say 'Not right now, I'm thinking'.

When you're surrounded by notifications, and going from one screen to the next from the second you wake up to the second you sleep, consider what you're putting your brain through. Have you ever wondered why you feel so tired, whilst doing nothing all day but staring at your phone? Your brain is going through a million pieces of content per day, whether it's wholesome, funny or devastating. It was never meant to be fed so much every hour, and it's struggling to keep up. Giving your attention to everything, means you're not giving your full attention to one thing.

This is why going into flow is deemed a superpower now. I can't remember the last time I was truly in flow, where I was so engrossed in work that I just couldn't put it down and I had no concept of time. Even whilst writing this article, I found myself checking my emails when opening another tab to search for a particular word, and glancing over at a notification on my phone (LinkedIn view, if you were curious). My brain then had to use energy to pull me back to focus, on my original train of thought, which I of course had forgotten.

When was the last time you were bored? Do you think it's important to be bored sometimes? There's growing anxiety with children being given iPads to keep themselves entertained so that they're no longer able to think for themselves. I can see this in myself. Whilst I consume so much content whether online or through books, I rarely reflect upon them and absorb them. When I read books as a kid, I would read the same one multiple times and talk about it with friends and now we're obsessed with reading challenges and binging all the videos from a newly discovered Youtuber.

I challenge you to find some time to be bored this week. Try not to take your phone out for a walk, or keep it in your pocket the next time you're in a queue. What do you see? How do you feel? Are you creating as much as you're consuming? Give your brain a rest, and time to reflect. Be bored.