"Only boring people get bored." -My grandma
OMG, am I boring? Or am I just a work-and-hustle addict who has a hard time stopping?
I distinctly remember being a little kid and calling my grandma on a lazy Saturday afternoon when I was feeling antsy (anxiety started young for me, but wasn’t named as such for decades). “I’m bored,” I told her, sitting on the edge of my hot pink bed in my hot pink room with multiple signed Bette Midler headshots hovering above. My beloved grandma—my favorite human I’ve ever known to date—sat on the other end of the phone in her pastel condo just an hour south of my house (exit 8A on the New Jersey Turnpike, to elongate a very old joke).
Grandma—who was probably keeping her friends waiting in the other room, since she was usually busy winning a Bridge game on any given Saturday afternoon—didn’t miss a beat: “Oh, Jazz,” she said. “Only boring people get bored.” Then she listed off suggestions of activities I could do: Create a poem. Draw cute little cartoons for the cartoon book I was working on. Write another fan letter to Bette Midler.
Though all of those options were indeed appealing, I ended up not heeding my grandma’s good advice. It’s true that she was always finding ways to occupy her time (when it wasn’t card games where she’d bet only pennies or nickles, it was day trips to Atlantic City where she’d gamble no more than $50 or day trips into NYC to see a deeply discounted Broadway matinee), but I found her conclusion that “only boring people get bored” to be worrisome (yet another thing to worry about).
When I was doing theater (which was basically every afternoon, evening, and many weekends), I wasn’t bored. My entire life was built around my plays, my singing lessons, my acting classes, and my big dreams to get the hell out of Edison, NJ as quickly as possible. I showed up for these activities with an intense, monomaniacal focus. They were my life.
But during those rare moments when I’d come up for air, or if I was in between plays (my idea of hell) and suddenly without a thing to occupy my time on a Saturday afternoon, I simply didn’t know what to do with myself.
I could go on a rant about how I was missing both self-soothing and self-entertainment skills, and it was only after I self-soothed in all the wrong places as an adult that I figured out the harsh truth: that this broken piece of me that just didn’t know how to manage downtime was more than just boredom. It was indicative of an overactive mind that stood in the way between my productivity and my ability to relax. (But I’ll save the said rant for another newsletter or therapy sesh.)
Over the years, that part of me became an important piece of my both successes and my oft-admired relentlessness around work (“if you want something done, ask a busy person” is an overused saying for a reason). But despite the perks my bottomless drive brought me, by the time I turned 40, I could tell I was breaking down a little bit—unable or unwilling to keep functioning with that relentless, Energizer Bunny way of life.
And even with that thought creeping in that there must be another way of being productive—one that relies on both drive and downtime (#worklifebalance)—I still didn’t know how to handle “boredom.” I finally, fundamentally understood that this was a pretty gigantic problem.
After I got off the phone with my grandma all those years ago, I thought about taking her advice on creative ways to occupy my time … but I didn’t ultimately do it, because I just didn’t know how. Instead, I changed around all the furniture in my bedroom, which was something I did pretty much every week (another symptom of my restlessness, not to mention my lack of understanding of the amount of weight I could pull by myself).
I want to just pause for a moment to appreciate that young Jasmin who did her very best to harness her passion and release her pent-up emotions through a blend of Bette Midler-fangirling, overzealous performing (at 15, I was a convincing Mama Rose), and changing around her furniture with the resolve of a hyped-up interior designer. Though I wish she had developed the skills earlier on to self-soothe, chill out and enjoy “Family Ties,” and heed her doting grandmother’s advice to channel that restlessness into hobbies, I’m nonetheless grateful for her for being a badass go-getter.
And now that I’m done talking about myself in the third person, I’ll go back to that original idea, as originally told to me decades ago by Grandma herself: Only boring people get bored.
On one hand, I disagree, since boredom seems to be a lost art in the time of infinite scrolling, and, to me, that means that pretty interesting, self-aware people get bored (it’s even said that boredom can spark creativity and that being bored can bring with it opportunities for self-growth).
But on the other hand, there is indeed something to Grandma’s conclusion, and I think it’s all in how you name it. For me, the next time I’m feeling the boredom creep in—which will certainly happen on a weekend afternoon when I know better than to turn on my work computer and I’m really not feeling like cleaning up the kitchen, so what am I to do?!—I will try to train my brain instead into using that uncomfortable, foreign feeling as a way to switch into a different gear entirely.
I will do my best to not make that gear unconscious consumption (i.e. binge-watching HBO); instead, I will use it as a trigger to find value in doing something else—such as painting my paint-by-numbers (don’t knock it ‘til you try it), or walking while listening to music and taking in those budding flowers that are all over my little town, or playing with my cat and dogs (nobody does “being present” better than animals).
I need to remember that not everything has to lead to the next thing. That I don’t need to spend all of my downtime spiraling in my head about my next big project (relatedly, and note to self, me spiraling about it isn’t going to be what ultimately makes it happen).
And that the only way I can continue to be productive, creative, and driven is by loosening that goddamn knot.
Honestly, even writing this out is hard for me, because it’s almost impossible for me to imagine what I can do with the days that aren’t packed solid with appointments and obligations. I can tell, just by the amount of discomfort rising to the surface for me right now, that this is going to be an ongoing challenge for me. (I welcome any tips you might have for truly unplugging, but not automatically using that time for TV or something else that takes you out of the present.)
And yes. I realize that I’m pussyfooting around the word “mindfulness” right now, and I’m noticing the irony in the fact that my own daily mindfulness practice is (you guessed it) scheduled in like a work meeting. So how do I allow those slower moments to be infused with more mindlessness and less anxiety? My guess is that the transparency and self-accountability I’m bringing to this newsletter is a start.
It’s also worth pointing out that the better I become at time-management and calendaring—not to mention honing in on those things I value and ensuring that’s where my attention goes—the more I am likely to have downtime in which to get bored in the first place. This is definitely a signal that I probably shouldn’t be working all the time (Me: “But I don’t work all the time! I take weekends off!” Also Me: “But during those times, you are generally thinking about working!” Me Again: “That’s a really going point … let’s go move around some furniture!”).
Here are things I will do (and not do) the next time I’m feeling bored:
I will recognize that it is a foreign, uncomfortable feeling because I never allowed myself to grow in that particular way. All growth comes with discomfort. It’s never too late to expand in new directions.
I will teach myself how to enjoy the simpler things, such as taking a walk to the park, painting or crafting, or even stretching my body with the help of a YouTube tutorial (I spend so much time sitting in front of a computer and my body is not happy about it).
Though a quick Google search about what to do when you’re bored will encourage you to watch TV or clean the house (both of which are important to do sometimes), I personally want to avoid 1) being too productive (my wife will attest to the fact that finding time to tidy is not my issue, and might actually be a manifestation of my anxiety) and 2) escaping into the rabbit hole of streaming services. I would much prefer to sit in the discomfort and then find something to do that (woo alert! woo alert!) allows me to vibrate on a higher plane (sorry, but I warned you), get to know myself in a new way (a way that isn’t reliant on planning whatever is next), and self-entertain without the help of anyone or anything else.
I’d love to know what you do when you’re bored.
xo,
jazz
One Thing I’m Jazzed About
I happen to have extremely talented, creative friends. My buddy Nancy Kissam is both a lauded theater teacher in Los Angeles and a brilliant playwright. She invited me to do a live, virtual playreading on May 1 at 10:00pm ET, and it’s open to the public! I’d love it if you wanted to join us and tune in! The script is hilarious, angsty, and biting. It explores family dynamics, death, and authenticity in a way that you’ll probably find familiar. Here are the details:
"Vigil" Live Reading
Time: May 1, 2021 7pm PT / 10pm ET
Join Zoom Meeting
https://lausd.zoom.us/j/84866494499?pwd=NHUyRnYzWVhwVEgxVU82ZHRLUkJLQT09
Passcode: 595649