Daddy, I’m bored, there’s nothing to do.
Nothing used to upset me more than when one of my three children would tell me they had nothing to do. “What?” I would exclaim, “You have video games, a PSP, cell phones, television, Facebook, skateboards, bicycles, computers, iPods, a piano, a guitar, baseballs, footballs, Frisbees, a tree-house, volleyball, and friends galore. How can you be bored?” Then one day I realized:
Boredom is the result of over entertainment.
What we think of as boredom is really the result of too much stimulation. Let’s face it: there’s always something to do. It may not be as entertaining as a concert or as exciting as car chases, saving the world from evil dictators, or parachuting into Africa to survive on bugs and weeds but there’s always something to do.
We live in a society that expects to be entertained and amused every waking hour and it isn’t cheap. We expect to be mentally stimulated by our spouses, our friends, our environment, and our jobs. If we aren’t, we’re told to ditch them for something or someone that revs our engine, that gets us excited, that ignites our passion.
