Are You Bored?
It’s happened twice in two days… someone at work has stated, “I’m bored.” They didn’t even have any enthusiasm as they said it. It was just a hum-drum heart felt, deeply depressing grumbling of discontent.
When I asked why they were bored, they both responded: “There’s nothing to do.”
Immediately I smiled. You see when my children were young, I warned them that if they ever told me there was nothing to do I would give them a list of chores to tackle. Hard work keeps your mind off boredom!
My children never told me there was nothing to do. Not during the dog days of summer when it was so hot and humid you didn’t feel like moving, nor during the frigid days of winter when the outside air froze your boogers.
My children knew I could find some task for them to do so they managed to keep themselves amused. Sometimes they’d read books, play games, build puzzles, search for hidden treasures lost in the clutter of their bedrooms.
I offered to find something for my co-workers to do but neither was receptive to the idea. You see I think they were actually experiencing an intellectual crisis. They were caught in a rut and didn’t know how to get out of it.
Amazingly, in between these two conversations, I received the first issue of a soon to be published e-zine written by a friend of mine named Gloria Daniels. She wrote about tackling a project that seemed daunting. For her it was developing a web site. As scary as the project seemed, she knew she was intelligent. She knew there were many resources available to help her. And she knew that she would eventually succeed even if she felt overwhelmed and totally frustrated during the learning process.
Of course she did succeed. She’s still working out some of the kinks but I hope you’ll take a minute to visit her new website. It is the “Home to Innovative Relaxation Products for Your Mind and Body.” www.spiritgenie.com
So what does this have to do with you? Ask yourself this question…
Do I feel challenged?
If the answer is no, then pick something you’d like to learn. Pick something that will require you to think differently than you do right now. Pick something that will require you to talk with people you don’t usually talk with. Pick something that stimulate your thought process and force you to develop skills you don’t currently possess.
The feelings of satisfaction, confidence and delight you’ll experience as you learn something new will be more than enough to sustain you during those boring periods when “there’s nothing to do.”
I’d love to know what new thing you’re going to learn. Care to share it with me? Send a note to: donna@donnadoyon.com.
