Thoughts on Boredom

Dear Readers,

I grew up with a mother who did not tolerate boredom.  And boy did we learn quickly.  The second one of us whined, “I’m bored,” we were sentenced to vacuum the living room, wash the dishes, or weed the garden.  (Not that we didn’t regularly do these chores, mind you; I'm talking extras.)  We learned to either find something to do or be content being bored without anyone else knowing of our plight.

As I got a bit older and got an AOL Instant Messenger account (I know, right?) I had so many conversations along these lines:

Friend: ‘Sup?

Me: Not much, just playing Solitaire/listening to Plus One/reading a book.  How about you?

Friend: Bored.

Me: Why don’t you do something about it?

Friend: What?

Me: Go play with chalk.  Dye your hair.  Read a book.  Invent a language.  Quit whining.

Friend: Whatever.  I’m bored.

And I simply couldn’t understand.  Why wouldn’t you do something else – or at least shut up about it?  Because if you’re whining to me, I’m going to assume that you’d like my advice on how to better your situation – and by golly, I’m going to give you my advice.

But now with my current job, I’m experiencing a little boredom.  In fact, someone asked me today if I was bored, and I actually said yes.  My job this summer goes like this:

Monday – panic panic panic hurry panic hurry 5:00

Tuesday – do stuff, 1:00 sit around and answer phones until 5:00

Wednesday – Friday -    sit around and answer phones, maybe have 1 hour of actual tasks a day.

Okay, it’s a slight exaggeration, but I seem to spend so much time just sitting around waiting for the phone to ring.  My usual boredom busters don’t work.  I can’t go play with chalk because I couldn’t hear the phone from outside.  I can’t dye my hair because the smell would make Caleb sick and hair dye is expensive.  I can’t read a book because honestly?  If you walked in the office and saw your employee reading a book while getting paid hourly – what would you do?  Yeah… and that’s the reason I can’t do a lot of other things to fill my time, either: knit/crochet, make jewelry, color, Facebook, Pinterest, blog, etc.  Oh wait…  (Shh… I’m actually at work as I write this, emailing this from my work email to my personal email to post later.) 

And who knows – maybe my boss wouldn’t mind.  But … yeah… that’s not how Momma raised me.

And I hate being bored because it’s such a waste of time!

Actually I just remembered a project I wanted to try (Pinterest) that involves the big office cutter (the one  you’re always afraid people will accidentally use to cut off their fingers)… maybe I’ll go get that.  J

Love and Boredom,

Leah Joy