When’s The Last Time You Did Nothing? (In Defense Of Boredom)

I noticed something troublesome recently — we’re constantly either listening or talking. Our minds are in a 24/7, constant state of communication, in one way or another. Think about it and try to tell me a time throughout your day when you aren’t doing one of two things, creating or ingesting.

If you’re a social person, then the communication is a bit more obvious, because being around people means being sharp and conversational. Hearing people talk, ingesting said information, analyzing its meaning, then formulating proper responses — that whole process might feel second nature, but it uses up a massive portion of your brainpower. Even when you aren’t communicating, we’re usually texting or messaging all day long. And even when the conversations stop, we often turn to timelines and stories, where we read captions, analyze images, and use our brains to process all the content we’re ingesting. It may feel like scrolling Instagram or Facebook is downtime, but it isn’t. You’re using up your brain’s finite amount of energy just as much.

Taking this to the offline world, people like to unwind by exercising, reading, or doing some sort of activity they enjoy like writing, painting, or yoga, just to name a few. While that’s great, I would argue that even those activities deplete your brain’s gas tank. They aren’t real downtime. Sure, the engine isn’t revving at full tilt, but it’s still running none the less. No matter what you do, that voice inside of your head is never quiet. It never has a chance to exhale. It never has room to run around and play. It’s always pre-occupied; always distracted.

I like to picture it like a secretary surrounded by an overwhelming amount of filing cabinets. Picture this little, old woman, getting up from her tiny desk in the middle of the room every time she has to go fetch a memory or even a word. Sure, the “Words” folder is relatively close to her desk and easy to retrieve (after all, she uses it a slew of times throughout the day), but she still has to look up which word means what and carefully select the appropriate ones to send over to the brain and/or mouth to use. She’s gotten really good at it, but she’s still working. She’s in a constant state or scurrying around, fetching different information in different folders; it’s exhausting. She just wants to sit down and take her shoes off for a moment, but we never let her. We’re terrible bosses.

So, when’s the last time you did nothing?

I recently took a day off. Sure, I’ve taken days off in the past, either to do something fun with friends or just veg out and watch movies, but never an actual day “off” in the literal sense. I got up in the morning and didn’t turn on my computer, I didn’t look at my iPhone, and I didn’t even play any music. I decided I would give myself a one-day cleanse of technology and its accompanying noise.

To my surprise, this was extremely difficult. You’d think that, as a human being, I’d be able to just be alone with myself, sans distraction. After all, I’ve been with me for 30 years, I assumed I’m pretty comfortable with myself by now. That’s the funny thing about addiction, though, you become dependent and only realize it once that thing is removed. For me, the lack of technology was giving me the itch. I realized that, although I spend a lot of time by myself, I haven’t truly been alone in years.

I decided to occupy myself by doing some painting. I painted for about two hours and miraculously made three paintings (it usually takes me about three hours to make one, when I’m answering messages and looking up at the TV every two minutes). Then I paced around for a bit, feeling uncomfortable again, and decided to sit down and read. I read for two or three hours, ploughing through an entire book that I’d been meaning to read for over a year. It felt great. However, I realized that reading, while an important practice that everyone should do more often, isn’t dissimilar to television or social media timelines in the sense that the voice in my head is still front and center, taking up all of my attention.

By the time I put the finished book down, I noticed it was only 1pm. What the fuck?!

That’s when I did the most useful thing I’ve done in years: nothing. I lay down on the couch and stared up at the ceiling and just let my mind think. I kept a notepad nearby in case any particularly great ideas popped into my head that I wouldn’t want to forget, but other than a few short note-taking breaks, I lay in silence for about seven straight hours. I didn’t nap, I didn’t have a plan or a strategy to my thoughts; I just let my mind go freely, and that’s when I realized just how truly powerful that puppy is.

The mind is a truly remarkable thing; it’s actually astonishing what it can come up with when given the freedom to do so. I got a feeling that I haven’t felt since I’m probably 11 or 12 years old, coming home from school with no homework to do, before social media and apps, and the freedom to just figure out the rest of my day. I could draw, I could play with toys, I could go outside; the possibilities were endless. I realized it’s been close to two decades since I’ve been bored, and I realized the word “bored” gets an unfairly bad wrap.

People see “boredom” as a bad thing and look to avoid it, when in reality, it’s kind of the lifeblood of productivity and creativity. Boredom is a valuable necessity to innovation. Boredom is where truly great ideas are buried, waiting to be discovered by our constantly pre-occupied minds walking above. And I don’t mean boredom in the sense of scrolling through Instagram and there being nothing new to look at so you switch over to Twitter and then back to Instagram 15 minutes later hoping there’s some new stuff. That isn’t boredom. That is the enemy of boredom: fodder. That is the smoke being pumped into your vision so you continue to not see clearly. That is what’s keeping us from achieving boredom and earning its benefits.

I noticed a huge difference, especially in the days that have followed my little sabbatical. I’m more focused, I’m more productive, I have energy, and I have this newfound motivation to work like I just came back from a week-long all-inclusive vacation. I’m suddenly getting things done in half the time it usually takes me, which is strange for me, considering I’m typically the type who works from the moment I get up until the moment I get into bed and allow myself a few moments of social media scrolling before sleep. I’m not sure what I’m even going to do with all this extra time I’m clearing up for myself, but I do know one thing I want to do more of: nothing.

I’m not claiming you should throw all your electronics into a lake and live a monk-like life. We’re people who live in a modern society and these things are just a part of it now; that much isn’t going to change any time soon. In fact, there’s a 100% chance that you’re either reading this on a computer screen, tablet screen, or a phone screen, and the irony of that isn’t lost on me. You’re reading these words with that voice inside your head — the one you listen to all day long. That’s fine. That’s what we’re used to. However, I strongly urge you to be bored sometimes. And by bored, I don’t mean restless and I don’t mean mundane. Boredom isn’t just the lack of “something to do”, because “nothing” is a friggin’ worthwhile thing to do from time to time.