My grandpa operates on a different level. He’s content in any situation and I’ve never seen him stressed out. Without ever specifically practicing mindfulness he’s a master. There are many life lessons I’ve learned from my time living with my grandpa that I hope to share. Today’s lesson is on boredom.
The Beauty of Boredom
He’s conquered boredom. Not conquered in that he has successfully kept himself busy enough to avoid boredom. I mean he’s conquered boredom itself. It’s not uncommon for me to come upstairs and see him just sitting in his rocking chair. Maybe he’s drinking coffee, or eating a Taquito. Usually, he’s just sitting.
He’s like a relic. A throwback to an era before we became distracted by the modern world and the allure that all the gadgets provide. I’ll ask if he wants me to turn on the TV.
“Nope. I’m alright.”
“Are you bored?” I ask.
“No, I’m just sitting.”
He doesn’t have a smartphone and doesn’t use social media. He doesn’t need to be doing anything in order to fill a void or keep negative thoughts from entering his mind. He’s content to just sit and be.
We live in a society where we’re always trying to do more, see more, live more, connect more. The net effect is we end up feeling frazzled and disconnected.
Watching my grandpa is a daily reminder to slow down and relax.
I think we’d all be happier if we spent a little time becoming friends with boredom. Instead of something to fear, boredom is a chance to unwind. It’s a chance to practice being content with ourselves, no outside stimulus needed.
If you can be content doing nothing, you can be content doing anything.
Who’s up for an experiment?
Ask yourself how you’re feeling right now in order to get a baseline.
Set the timer on your phone for five minutes. Next, set your phone down and just sit. Don’t watch TV, don’t look at your computer, don’t reach for your phone. Take five minutes and become friends with boredom.
I’m guessing most readers will feel they simply don’t have time for this experiment. There’s too much to do to purposefully welcome boredom. So they’ll rush off to their next task, the next article, the next nugget of wisdom.
We’d rather skim five articles than fully internalize one article. Maybe all you need to learn today is how to sit and do nothing. Maybe that feeling of not having time is exactly why this is an important experiment.
After the five minutes have finished ask yourself how you’re feeling. Did the five minutes of boredom help or hurt your overall well-being?
I’ve been doing this for the last several days. It’s become one of my favorite routines. No expectations, nothing that I should be doing instead. My task is to sit quietly and just be.
Ready? Go.
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It was nice to take a few minutes to just sit. The first few minutes was taken up with thoughts running through my head, but finally they slowed. It probably wouldn’t have taken quite as long if I had set this 5 min period up as a meditation/mindfulness session, but I felt like that would defeat the point of the exercise. Your grandfather, like mine, isn’t doing anything too formal when he just exists. I’d like to bottle men like that up and create literal chill pills. lol
Yeah if I could bottle his overall life energy and sell it I’d be a rich man.
I’m old and from my POV any time spent with the absence of pain, fear, anxiety, tasks, deadlines etc is pure joy. As time flies by in old age, just to sit goes by in a flash. Then we get up and move about again. Maybe it’s one of the perks of getting old that joy in just sitting and not searching for anything any more. I enjoyed your post bc it reminded me of this, thank you 🙏🏻
Yes. The older I get the more excited I am to just sit.
I like this! I’ve been trying to have some quiet time of meditation, journaling, and reading something contemplative as soon as I wake up in the morning, and before checking my phone, and this would be great to add to that. Well, it might be even better midday, but we know that’s less likely to actually happen. Thanks for the thought!
My opinion has always been “only boring people get bored”. After working your whole life and rarely having down time, just sitting is a joy.