Bored.

Remember when it was actually possible to spend a boring afternoon? We were forced to find creative ways to entertain ourselves, things like reading books, listening to music or just daydreaming. Not anymore.

Could it be that we have become so overly stimulated that nothing truly entertains us anymore?

We cannot stand to be bored long enough to dream or think creatively. We rush to push the panic buttons before boredom sets in. Nowadays, people seem to believe that there is an inalienable right to NOT be bored. We have television, radio, computers, video, tapes, CD's, movies, cell phones, digital cams, and DVD. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever spend any time being bored.

Somehow, our gadgets are not quite as entertaining as they used to be though. Hundreds of channels but we still we can't find anything on television worth watching. Thousands of websites, but we surf aimlessly from one site to another. We have also become multi-taskers, eating, watching TV, working on the computer, and talking on the cell phone all at the same time. The more stimulation we have, the more we seem to need. It keeps us from being bored.

Could it be that we have become so overly stimulated that nothing truly entertains us anymore? We are always looking for something better, something more interesting, something more exciting - something less boring. There is too much to see, too much to do, too much to entertain us, too much competition for our time and attention. There is no time to watch a sunset, go for a walk, feed the birds, or rediscover the thoughts, meditations and dreams of our own mind. That's BORING!

We are filled with the voices, thoughts and words of other people, with values different from our own. The more we absorb, the more alike we all become, and the blander, more uniform and more boring life becomes. Soon nothing will be stimulating enough to keep boredom away. We will sit among our electronic gadgets, surfing from channel to channel on the television, pushing button after button on the remote control, clicking from site to site on the computer, reading email after email as we look for a something we've not seen or heard a hundred times before. In fact sometimes we don’t even wait for a song to finish.

Strange our how our minds never died from boredom in the past. Is it really so likely that they will now? Nothing is entertaining enough. Nothing is worth our time. We seek more and more of the very thing that is causing our demise. We are stuck in information overload. Perhaps it is time sit back and just do nothing for a while. Perhaps we need to take a little time to clear our minds and just be bored. Maybe, just maybe, a little old-fashioned boredom is not such a bad thing.