Who’s Bored?

These days, I manage new ways to navigate this hectic schedule. I knew it would come; when school begins, things tend to go wild every year.

As you can imagine, long hours in traffic, juggling work with family life, and in the meantime, trying to find a way to have at least an hour to run outside. Yet, this year is different. I feel I’m somehow a new person who finds resources to do things with light in my heart.

I start my day by waking up when nothing seems alive, but I have time to meditate, write, and run before taking my child to school.

All the day schedule is organized by the minute since I know I wouldn’t make time for all my tasks.

Yet, I have an enormous longing. I want to have that feeling that I am bored. To sit and do nothing.

I need to stop all this movie, pause, and lay down like a cat, looking at the rising sun and having nothing to do. I want to overcome that guilt that life is about doing and not sitting around and doing nothing.

I was raised this way to believe I am worthy only if I do so much in so little time — no wonder I am burned out year-round. I feel terrible if I sit and look at the sky, the walls, or the void. For not reading enough, for leaving my house untidy, for not working out properly (this is why you struggled the last marathon; you were lazy, lazy, lazy). Deep inside, I feel that I’m lazy, unworthy, and not good enough if I dare to dream instead of doing.

I secretly welcomed the pandemic with its lockdown. Nobody was doing anything then, and, man, how I needed not to do a single thing. And because not doing something was the norm then, I didn’t feel guilty about myself. I spent those two months walking in the woods, watching the leaves grow, looking at the sky, and trying to find new shapes in the clouds. I know I was privileged to live so close to the forest. Nowadays, living here, so far away from the city, might seem like a curse for spending so much time in traffic, yet in those days, I was high in the sky and free.

Life isn’t about doing and achieving stuff. Life is about living, feeling damn alive. And how in the world could you find that inner being in this world of never-ceasing action? We leave ourselves behind and need those crumbs to find the way back, like in the story of Hansel and Gretel. The way back to ourselves is made by crumbs of our souls that we leave on this life path.

I need to stop and feel the boredom. Nothing happens, and I have nothing to do. Or, since I have to be realistic, I choose not to do anything, to sit, look at the sky, close my eyes when I feel like it, and let myself be surrounded by light, nature’s voices, and love. This is how I finally feel alive. I don’t need action; I need boredom.

I want to put my brain in the position of not thinking, just being and allowing life to happen. I never get bored, and I want to feel what it’s like at least once in a while. Because too many things happen, but we never notice them due to our “business.” I need to allow myself to stop doing and start feeling. I believe this is living with the complete being, feeling more and doing less.

We need to get bored, even if just once in a while. There’s no better recharge, and who knows? Maybe we’ll like it and stop the rat race.