Get Bored

"Only boring people get bored."

~ Ruth Burke

I would like to politely (and resentfully) disagree.

As Tolstoy wrote, boredom is "a desire for desires." Usually when we're bored it's because we can't just be in the moment. Boredom is a need for distraction. We need to be stimulated when the place we're in is not stimulating for us.

In a 2003 survey, teenagers who said that they were often bored were 50% more likely than their peers to later pick up smoking, drinking and drugs.

It's like being still is too hard for us. We need the distraction, the stimulation, the escape. We need to be doing something. Do we simply have an addiction to "doing"?

Are you planning your next party? Rearranging your furniture (again)? Online shopping? Smoking? Biting your nails? Worrying about that thing you have tomorrow? Worrying about that thing that happened yesterday?

Maybe you need to just sit. I'm not even saying meditate. Just sit still. Turn off the phone, and any notifications/alerts you might get from your various devices, and sit. Ten minutes. Or more! Whenever you start worrying about the future or the past, say to yourself, "Thanks for sharing, but I'm just sitting right now."

Why am I suggesting you give yourself a chance to be bored? It's not because I care whether or not you become a spiritual giant. But just like a plant can only grow if there's room for it to grow, creativity needs space to flourish too. When you've got nothing to do, you open yourself up to inspiration.

Let yourself be bored. Sit still and listen for the creative ideas. You've got those ideas in you already- you just need to quiet things down in order to hear them.