How Can You be Bored?

A friend on Facebook is convalescing from a painful surgery, and has been on the shelf, unable to do much but lie around for the past week.  She went to Facebook and complained that her boredom was actually worse than the pain of her surgery.

And to that I thought, "What a waste."

There is no greater gift than the gift of time.  None.  And yet we squander it, especially when presented with the gift of an unexpected allotment.  

Personally, I have a list of books I want to read, friends with whom I haven't talked, movies I want to see, things I want to write, topics I wan to research, physical activities and exercises I want to do, magazines I want to read, aspects of my faith that I want to perform, volunteer work I want to conduct, loved ones I want to tell how much they mean to me, chores I want to get caught up on, etc.  My goodness, the list of what I want to do, and am prevented from doing due to time, is nearly infinite.

I've heard many approach their retirement with fear, wondering what in the world they're going to do with their time.  For me, I cannot wait to get to retirement and to finally have the time to do all the things I've been unable to do up to this point.  In fact, I fear that I might not have enough time in my life between retirement and my demise to get it all in.

At the funeral of a friend's mother a couple of years ago, the celebrant talked of things that the woman commonly said which encapsulated her life.  One of them really struck me: "If you're bored, you're boring."  

Time is a gift, even if it comes in a format that isn't exactly optimal.  Gifts should not be squandered, as there will likely come a time latter in life in which time, age, and circumstances prevent us from doing that which we had time to do previously. 

I close with a quote from someone far smarter than me:

Does thou love life?  Then do not squander time, for that is what life is made of.

- Benjamin Franklin