Oh to Be Bored Again...

Bored. It's a word that got me in trouble growing up. In our house, "bored" was known as "the b word", and no one was allowed to say it without serious consequence. Holding back my 10 year-old tongue was difficult at times, but even though that word might not have been muttered from my mouth, I'm sure there were times where it was running constantly through my head. Being bored was the opposite of fun for a kid like me because I always seemed to want something to do, and any extended period of quiet time was my archenemy. What used to hold an overarching connotation of disgust and negativity, now holds synonyms such as restful, peaceful, relaxed, or calm.

Today, I'm 24 going on 25 in a couple months, and it seems that bored has been lost from my vocabulary. This time against my will. Now "bored" just seems like a long-lost friend that has mysteriously slipped out of my mind without any indication of its passing. It's something that I now wish I would have appreciated more in my younger years, just like nap time. But before I get any further, unfortunately keeping busy is part of life. There are situations, circumstances, and responsibilities that I have realized over the past five years or so that are unavoidable. Nevertheless, there is still enough I can contemplate and share on how I am longing to reunite with my now "good friend", Bored.

Information. It's usually thought of as good and the more the better. While that may be the case in some instances, I tend to believe that some times, the less information the better. To put it in context, I simply mean that we have access to too much at any given time than what I feel is good for us. We can turn on the tv and see what is happening throughout the world, or flip through any of the other hundreds of channels that are available at the click of a button (unless you have antenna TV like me, in which case you only have access to a handful. I digress). However groundbreaking that may seem to some, an even more powerful source of information is what we hold in our hands every day. Something that has more capabilities and power than the rooms of computers that took us to the moon in 1969. Phones are the single most extensive source of information that will never ever run out.

Think back a few decades and all we had were newspapers. There was only a certain amount of information that could fit on those sheets and then you had to quit, or read the same stories over again. Then you had two options: be bored or work on something else. When I think about what was available to my grandparents and even my parents (I'm not saying they're OLD but you do the math), it gives me an interesting comparison on how we live today.

I guess this has turned more into a rant than anything else, but even so, this subject is something that I have thought about for several years, but with little to no changing actions in my ways. I guess my big question is, "Do we actually get enough rest and quiet time, and if we don't, how is that going to affect my generation and younger when we age?" When I think of the "good ol' days", you put in a hard days work, came home and tended to responsibilities, and then had some of the evening to yourself. For me, I would have picked out my favorite rocking chair on the porch, or simply sat and enjoyed the view, inside or out. Nowadays, we still have those exact same opportunities yet they seem so irrelevant or feel like there just isn't enough time to enjoy those things anymore. I would say most of my generation and younger are addicted to their phones. When they have free time during the day or evening, instead of sitting and relaxing, it is easy to fall into a trap of sitting and scrolling. Even though many may argue that sitting in scrolling IS relaxing, physical relaxation doesn't necessarily go hand-in-hand with mental relaxation. Minutes scrolling can easily turn into hours and your whole day or evening soon slips through your fingers, with the cause being what is held by them.

In 2021, I'm not sure that a "young" person could ever be bored again. TV's, computers, and phones have snatched up and free time to be "bored" and is holding onto it without any intention of letting go. That's how we communicate with friends and family, sometimes when we are sitting in the same house. We have the ability to know anything about any place, person, or subject that crosses our mind, and we use our phones as the gateway to information. I miss the days of being bored as I am afraid that just like other things, the word will soon be more and more distant until we forget what it even felt like.

As I mourn the loss of the younger me who fought off any signs of boredom, it is also easily understandable that increasing adult responsibilities, decisions, and personal discipline have just as much to do with MAKING time to be bored as a phone does. I try to ask myself these questions and wrestle around with the answers as I try to make sense of this strange thing called life, and how to make it just a little more simpler.