Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Happy Tuesday. I’ve got the day, right. Yes. I wanted to talk tonight about boredom and if any of you are parents, you’ve probably heard your kids go, “I’m bored.” When we were kids we’d say, “I’m bored’ and then we’d swim or play in the backyard or take a bike out and come home when it got dark. All that kind of … or our parents would give us a chore.
Well my mother used to always say if I said it or even when she was living with us, [Elodie 00:00:28] would say, “I’m bored,” and my mum would go, “Only boring people get bored.” Well it’s not true cause I don’t think you have to be boring and get bored. But I think boredom is a state of mind. There’s a difference between being bored and being okay with doing nothing. I want to talk about that space. Charlie, shh.
These days we’ve got all the stuff going on all the time. There’s technology, there’s phones, we’re doing a thousand things, were scheduled with an inch of our lives. I’m actually scheduling no time, zero space time. Yeah, I’m that kind of person. But we are not very good at just sitting and being and a while ago, actually probably a year ago I had someone give me a bit of a come to moment with this. When I was talking about the audio books, hi Kate. I was reading audio books, I was listening to while I’ve walked, said Charlie dog. They said, “Can’t you just walk the dog? Just be present, walk the dog.” Don’t try and multitask because that’s what we’re all trying to do all the time. Multitasking. We’re listening to podcast while we cook dinner or were filling out school stuff on our laptops while we’re ironing. I’ve actually never done that cause I hate ironing but you get my drift.
Just sitting and actually doing nothing freaks a lot of us out because you get to sit in your thoughts. You might, heaven forbid you might do some self contemplation or heaven forbid you might actually fall asleep. You might just do nothing. A lot of it’s a … put it this way, when we were growing up, there were two TV channels in New Zealand, in Auckland, and I think it was about 10:00 or 8:00, whatever time at night, the little Kiwi would go up the thing and turn it off and it would be lights out and the TV would be gone for the night.
You just have to do something and if that was just go to bed, you just went to bed. These days, if there’s not something we like on [Foxtail 00:02:30], we can find something on Netflix so we can find it on Stan or we can stream it from something else or we can watch it on YouTube where we can download it somewhere else.
There’s a membership to something. There’s a podcast, there’s a video, there’s something we’re always absorbing, absorbing, absorbing, absorbing, which ends up with our brains going … scatter, scatter, scatter and we can’t actually just chillax. Chillaxing is really, really, really good. When we do have space, because a lot of us go, “Oh shit, now what do I do?” We fill that space and sometimes we just fill that space with stuff that doesn’t need to be done. We don’t really want to go to that movie. We don’t really want to do that task, but we do it.
Gardening is not actually doing nothing, people. If your garden or I’m sorry, but is is actually still doing something. It might be relaxing but it’s still doing something. When was the last time you actually just sat and looked at the ocean or you said in your backyard and just felt the sun on your face if even for a minute without a device or a phone or music or a friend, anything like that. You stayed in bed, not reading a book, just lay there. You might fall back asleep. Hopped in a bath without actually scrubbing or shaving your legs or reading a book or any of those other things we do or drinking [Dran Buie 00:03:41]. Not that I would ever drink Dran Buie in the bath. I can’t wink, by the way. That’s really gummy. That’s a bit better and did absolutely nothing?
We don’t do it. Well, I actually do because that space helps your creativity and helps you give me more energy, helps with self reflection. It actually makes you more grateful for the good that is filling your life rather than the crap that’s filling your life. Feed your soul a bit and it can even inspire you to do some stuff that maybe you’ve been putting off because you think, “Oh, that will be really boring doing that. I don’t want to take the garbage out.” Whatever. “I’ll be bored during that. I’ll be bored.”.
No you won’t. That’s a choice you make to make something make you feel bored. My challenge to all of you is to not walk the dog listening to Spotify or a podcast. As much as I love the Hot Flush, or an audiobook, just walk the dog. Okay? That is still physically doing something, but it’s a bit more chillaxing.
But that’s step number one. Step number two is just lie in bed with nothing. No phone, no music, no TV, no book, no children, no partner, nothing. See how that feels for a couple of minutes. You’ll be amazed how much good can come out of getting over that line where you go, “Oh shit, I’m doing nothing. I’m bored. Or my God contemplate my life.”.
It’s a bit like trying to meditate without … you know how you have to guided meditation’s because you’re sitting there meditating and your minds going do, do, do, do. It’s like a tennis match. Takes a while to get used to actually meditating, being okay with just sitting and being still and having nothing is a bit like that. I encourage you, practice it, practice it, practice it because it will bring your spark back and we all want more spark. Night-Night.