I Refuse to Be Bored!!

Kottke has a post titled "Ben Franklin Did Everything" which links to a post in the NY Times on Ben Franklin by Maira Kalman called "Can Do." Here's a quick excerpt:

I don't think he was ever bored. He saw a dirty street and created a sanitation department. He saw a house on fire and created a fire department. He saw sick people and founded a hospital. He started our first lending library. He saw people needing an education and founded a university.  He started the American Philosophical Society where men and women shared developments in science.   And then, by the way, he helped create and run the country.  He was a signer of both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

I love this for the opening line - "I don't think he was ever bored."  Boredom is a decision we make, not something happens to us.  There really is no excuse for being bored.  The "bored" of the world are those who believe it is the job of others to make them happy and keep them entertained.  But as far as I am concerned "boredom" is simply laziness in all its forms and is simply driven by the decision to not pay attention. 

I am not an inventor as Franklin was and I don't think you have to be to escape boredom.  But you can be a learner.  A learner is never bored, an inquisitive person who pays attention to the world and people around him can always find something to engage his attention.

The experience of "boredom" says far more about the one claiming to be bored than about the speaker, the event or whatever the alleged cause of the boredom.

Comments

[Christopher Dryden]

Brilliant stuff, wholeheartedly agree - keep up the good work.

[Dan Smith]

I appreciate the fact that you make the connection with "doing" and learning. It is true that a learner will not be bored. We don't always have to be out there trying to make something happen. Sometimes learning from others will allow us to prevent boredom and prepare to make an impact ourselves. That resonated with me this morning.

This was a nice post to read this morning. I'll need to make sure I don't allow myself to get bored anymore. It's a silly waste of time.

[Caleb]

Do you think if you're "bored" with your job, that you should leave it to do something else, or that you should try to pursue work that you already know is much more captivating? Is it okay to be bored with work?

[Christopher]

Jolly,

This is a great reminder. I think it's so easy to live with your mind in the past or the future and never accomplish anything at all because of failure to actively participate in the present. It's not always easy to apply your mind to your immediate surroundings and engage, but it's a whole lot more fruitful than day dreaming.

It's instructive that God, who is eternal and exists outside of time, came into time to be with us and engage us in the present. Christians, likewise, are called to be with and engage the world and the people are at, in the present. Too many evangelicals today are living in the past, celebrating what God did years ago and continuing to live in the culture of that era or are so future minded, entrepeneurial, cutting edge, and emergent that they lose sight of what people are like now and how the gospel applies to the present.

Most people don't have difficulty seeing how the gospel affects their past (I've been forgiven) and their future(I'm headed for eternity with God), but seeing how the gospel impacts their present reality is the constant struggle of the Christian walk. So I think its important to be reminded often to live in the now.

- Christopher