Boredom, Funkdom, and Dependence

When my kids used to tell me they were bored I would say, "It's okay to be bored."  Now, I'm not so sure.  If I turned towards introspection on my boredom, as usual, I would take total responsibility and veer slowly on a downward spiral focusing on my minor and sometimes major addicitons.  From the online medical dictionary this is what I found for "addiciton" ; Addiction is a persistent, compulsive dependence on a behavior or substance. 



It makes sense to me.  However, here I sit, on a beautiful, but very hot, Saturday afternoon in June, and I realize I'm bored out of my mind. 




Today I was very excited because I was going to buy something for my house that I've been eyeing for quite some time now.  Not that I "need" anything at all.  I "buy" things to make me happy. That fact, in itself,  is interesting and has caused introspection.  It turned out that on this very hot day in June, we had to put out over $800 to fix an air conditioning unit in our home.  My gut was telling me NOT to buy this beautiful piece, but I decided to do it anyway. 



As I reached for my card, (Fortunately I wasn't in the store and ready to buy this object of desire.) I realized it wasn't where it always is, safely in my wallet.  I figured it was somewhere.   But it wasn't, it wasn't anywhere. Deep inside there was this thought that maybe this was just a 'sign' that perhaps I shouldn't go through with the said purchase.  After going to the bank and telling them I had sadly lost my card, the nice man stopped any sort of action on my lost card and ordered me a new one. This time I listened to my "gut" and went home.

Then it began!  The question, "What should I do now???"  Because I'm on a never ending quest to lose the extra pounds I've gained in the last five years, I'm being very, very careful with what I eat.  I wanted to eat though.  No, I wasn't hungry, I was bored.



Okay, let's see, it's only a little after noon.  Way too early to have a glass of red.  That's not eating anyway.  Geeeeeeeeez

About now I'm totally seeing myself as a slave to pleasure and all kinds of fun stimulus.  What am I learning that's good?  What do I see that is productive?  Wow....



Life is strange.  Being in the moment is a beautiful thing, but being in the moment and learning to just 'be' is something I obviously haven't mastered.  Pondering life, the meaning of life, and what to do in the empty spaces is not easy in our American culture.  Especially if you've been used to a fast pace and it sort of slows down all of a sudden. 

I have a book that I read over and over.  It's a huge source of inspiration to me.  It's called "The Awakened Heart", by Gerald May.  Here is a quote from that book that refers to exactly what I'm experiencing this day;

"It is an addiciton of the first order that we feel we must always be filling up our spaces.  (Meaning times when there seems like there is nothing we really want to do.) It goes along with our addictions to work, to productivity, to effciency.  Sometimes, though, we do not like spaciousness because of what appears to us within it. Ever since Sigmund Freud's work, psychology has understood that human beings try to keep unpleasant things out of awareness.  "   May goes on to say, and I'm paraphrasing, that we need to live and accept the ache in our hearts for "more". 

Sometimes the "Protestant Work Ethic" just isn't all it's cut out to be.  Sometimes it just encourages busyness to the point that glancing within our selves just isn't on our agenda. 

So, today, I'm glancing...nope, I'm really looking and asking questions of myself.  Do I have any answers yet?  Maybe, but that's another blog. 

Hope your Saturday is filled with...well....hope your Saturday is going well. 
Love to you.........




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