When I was a kid I got bored all the time. I mean all the time. I flittered from one activity to another, never staying long enough to gain any real knowledge or enjoy the experience. As with most children, I didn’t think there was enough time to fit all of this in. I see the same phenomenon now presenting in my own children yet I no longer truly understand it.

Boredom arises when you find yourself doing nothing and desperately want to fill the void. The underlying truth however is that there really is nothing for you to do except to be. Sometimes your being manifests as doing nothing.

Just what is so bad about that? Are we so eager to experience stuff that we don’t see that we can experience the absence of stuff too? We enjoy music because of the silence just as much as the noise. Imagine a musical composition of constant noise with no breaks between notes. It would be hideous. Our lives are no different. The breaks between the doing are immensely important.

Next time you catch yourself looking for something to do next, step back and decide if there really is anything that you have to do right now. If not, enjoy the emptiness.