Boredom is a gift.

 

You're caught in a line or a lobby. You have some time before your appointment. So what do you do? Well, you can do what everyone else does and take out that entrancing black rectangle from your pocket or purse and infinitely scroll until it is your time. You can exist around others doing the same thing. Escape from the moment for a little while why don't you? God forbid that you get caught with the burden of boredom. 

Many of us may not even know what boredom is anymore considering we have the world at our fingertips to distract and entertain us. It's all by design. Endless possibilities to occupy your time. What happens when that is taken away from us? Do we feel irritable? Do we feel as if we are lost or wasting our time? Before all this technological innovation, boredom seemed to a more common place thing. Stuck in a scenario where you don't know what to do or can't do something? Well, you had to deal with. Some people looked for distractions and some enjoyed the presence of not having to do something for once. Boredom truly is an opportunity to engage with presence and what is happening all around us. It gives ease for the mind to wander and look inward. 

You (just might) need "boredom". It's about balance. It's about tension and release. The yin and the yang. If you were to always be occupied with one thing or constantly jumped from one thing to another then there would be no time to reset or grow. How many times have we remembered something when we weren't trying to remember it? You know, when you were trying to think of that one guy's name from that one movie and it wasn't bubbling up to the service. You had to let it go at some point and move on. It then came back. You got out of your own way. You let the mind do it's own thing. Notice how the words are separated by punctuations and paragraphs by spaces. You need room to breathe and process what you are taking in. Let it digest for once. 

Boredom is what we make of it and how we define it. Overall it rounds out to being a feeling. We can almost imagine what that feeling might feel like. We may think we experience it the same way, but the concept and feeling of boredom could be felt in so many diverse ways. At some point in our lives we were told what boredom was or how it should have been felt. This was a scam. Boredom is such an illusory construct. It trains us to move towards something temporary to occupy our monkey minds. Then what? We eventually feel that creeping spider of boredom come up our spines because we lose interest. The thrill is gone. It was swell, but the swelling went down. Etc. etc. 

Do we ever ask why we get bored? It's like hunger at times. Do we ever ask why we are hungry? Maybe it has been a long enough time between our last meal? Maybe we forgot to eat? If we are starting to feel bored (whatever that means to you) then why don't we question it. There's an underlying cause and simply trying to fill that void of "boredom" is more of an escape and cover up than anything else. Boredom can be a mental trap. An excuse to let us slide into less engaging things and slip into passivity. Boredom will surely beget more boredom if we never have the curiosity to ask why. 

So if we can change our perception on what boredom is and be more conscious when we start to feel a sense of boredom or dread, then we can open new opportunities. We can become more present and listen to why our conditioned minds are asking us to fill this empty cup of boredom. Must we always be occupied? Must we always be doing something? "Society" has trained us to aim towards productivity as if productivity is our most valuable and definitive asset. The mind has so much potential in its own wanderings when it is not constantly distracted or subdued. Why aren't we doing more things that we love? If we were more engaged with the things that bring us joy then the idea of boredom would not even be relevant. 

Take a beat and take a breath. What's the rush in trying to rush what doesn't need to be rushed? Sometimes it's the small tasks that can bring us the most meaning. If that feeling of boredom comes up simply be curious like a child. Try not reaching for that phone of yours. That black rectangle of divine distraction. Or simply take it out and look at it without scrolling or pressing buttons. The screen will eventually go dark and you will see your reflection. A face staring in a beautiful abyss. You feel alive and awake. Conscious of how you look. You start to hear the sounds around you that wouldn't normally hear. You will see life moving around you. A Vibrant life of people and things. The world moving through time. Your cares and worries will melt. You're in that moment. That moment in time where you are not trying to jump from lily pad to another. Away from that cyclical nature of thought. Out of your head. For the better or however you like to see it. 

Maybe boredom is what we need to feel in order to make us mindful of what we are doing in the first place. Almost like a realignment or reset switch. 

What is that feeling? That feeling of peace. That feeling of being ok where you are at right now? This could be waiting in line. This could be in a slow part of your day. There's a clarity always in front of you. Always for you. It only takes the ability to break away from the unconscious musings of the thought filled mind. A step back and looking at the thoughts. As if they were clouds. Letting them pass and not pushing back. It doesn't require a spiritual education or revelation. Being present is enough. That feeling of boredom, anxiety of dread is a gift. We just like to give these feelings names as to make sense of the world around us. Sometimes we just write it off and identify with it. We become that mask of anxiety or boredom. Then we really lose ourselves. And not in the moment for that matter. It's how we show up to it that counts. Those passing emotions or feelings are just that. Passing. Not nearly forever. Even pain is how we perceive it. And that especially goes for suffering. Or how we see suffering for that matter. 

So why see boredom as suffering when it does not have to be? It is more a door. A door to look inward. A door to take a mental inventory. A door to look at the world around you. The world that keeps on moving with or without your sense of boredom. 

DG