Sunday 30 March 2014

DSTSS - I'm bored

18.  Allow yourself to be bored

As i power through yet another chapter, i had to do a bit of research about this theory of allowing yourself to be bored.

When i was a kid, i used to get bored and used to annoy my mother and nana no end, by telling them how bored i was.  I was told to go and find something to do, and i'd say - but there's nothing to do.  I could have gone and practiced piano, ridden my bike, played with friends, but no, i was bored and none of those offerings every sufficed. I even hear my sister's boys saying the same thing.  I am bored....what can we do.

Maybe this is a thing that is common to most kids, if they do genuinely live a life so full of stimuli, that when they aren't doing anything, they are instantly bored.  I had gymnastics, swimming, piano, netball, softball, and with all that stuff, i was still bored.  There was a lot of stuff that took up my precious childhood time and i think it's worse for kids now.

Being bored must have been good for us, even though we didn't realise the benefit of it, but since the internet was invented,  and there is a whole range of stuff about boredom, then who really has time to be bored.
So having pondered on this, it would seem that our brain deserves a break every now and then to allow us to clear our mind and refresh.  I thought sleep was for that, but given i am such a vivid dreamer, my brain doesn't seem to switch off some nights. If i was to do some of the stuff in my real life, that i do in my dreams (and often there is more than one doozy dream), then i'd be bloody exhausted.

I haven't really thought about whether i have been bored in my adult life until now, as there is always so much that i could be doing.

I'm not sure that i will use the "Allow yourself to be bored" terminology, but i will allow my brain to refresh and relax and according to my book, when we give our brain a break, it comes back stronger, sharper, more focussed and creative. I like the sound of that as not only will i be smarter, but i will be able to cope with more.

It seems that this is also one of those Pantene moments - it won't happen overnight, but it will happen, once you get past the difficulty of giving yourself permission to just stop and doing nothing for a while.

Note to self:  Refresh your brain. Step away from the technology, turn off the telly, sit (or stand on your head if that works) and stare out the window every now and then and just do nothing....that's right NOTHING! It's okay to do that, even though sometimes we feel we should be just going and doing, all the time.  All the stuff that needs to be done will still be there after you having finished doing nothing for a little while

If you are truly suffering from boredom, then try doing some of these
1   Sit on both of your legs. When both legs go entirely numb, try to RUN!
2.  Connect heap of straws together, then use it to drink a drink that is on the other side of the room.
3.  Tie pillows around your stomach and back and have a sumo wrestling tournament with a friend.
4.  Google search "The end of the internet"

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