Go Ahead: Be Bored

“Mommy, I’m so bored!” my 4-year-old daughter yelled to me. “Can I watch TV?”

This was the fourth time that day that my daughter complained how bored she was. She’d already colored, painted, rode her bike and played with her little sister. 

“It’s OK to be bored sometimes,” I told her. “Just relax.”

This is a normal conversation I have with my daughter. If she doesn’t have something to do for five minutes, she starts with the whining. It’s my job, as a parent, not to coddle her during this time. Instead, I let her know that you don’t need something to do every single second of every single day.

However, I understand where she is coming from. When I was a child, I was usually bored. This was way before social media and smartphones and streaming TV – basically the Stone Age of the late ‘90s.. 

I would sit on the couch and try to think of something to do. There were only so many cartoons I could watch on Nickelodeon. I’d seen all the episodes of my favorite shows, anyway. I had to get creative. 

I ended up writing my own children’s books, building websites on America Online, learning the choreography for Britney Spears’ latest music videos, going to the local playground to jump off the swings and calling up my friends to have a sleepover. 

Some of my best memories came from being bored. 

One summer afternoon, my older sister Rebecca and I drove around in her car because we didn’t have anything better to do. As we were cruising, we saw an open fire hydrant, so we pulled over, jumped out of her car and gleefully danced in the water.  

In middle school, my friends and I were so bored late at night that we tried to walk through the drive-thru at our local fast-food joint. Though we couldn’t get any food because we weren’t in a car, we laughed our heads off trying. 

These days, nobody wants to be bored anymore. When we stop at a red light, we immediately pull out our phones. We can’t wait in line without answering our emails or scrolling on social media. When we watch movies, we Wikipedia the actors’ bios. That’s right: We’re so bored that we are on two screens at once. 

Here’s a little tip for life: You don’t need to be stimulated 24-7. As soon as you wake up, you do not need to check your phone. You can sit at a stoplight or wait in line or eat dinner with your spouse or friend without having your phone next to you.

It’s time to embrace boredom.

Thankfully, some are seeing the value in this. There’s a new trend where people are recording themselves doing nothing on a flight – they just stare at the travel map ahead of them or out the window – for hours on end. They then post the video on social media. These videos have millions of views, and people are eager to be bored on flights. I believe it’s because we are finally reaching a point where we are sick of being overstimulated. 

Sitting and doing nothing can be a great thing. We can go into our heads and work out issues we’re having. We can relax and meditate and think about who we really are and what we want out of life. We can reconnect with ourselves, and with God.

Sitting and doing nothing can be a great thing. We can go into our heads and work out issues we’re having. We can relax and meditate and think about who we really are and what we want out of life. We can reconnect with ourselves, and with God.

I do this on long Shabbats in the summer. On Saturday, Shabbat isn’t over until around 9 p.m., so that gives me a lot of time to be bored. I try to embrace it as much as I can. It’s my one time of the week where I’m free from my phone and all other distractions. It’s an incredible feeling.

This week, I challenge you to be bored.

You never know what you will discover about yourself or what it could lead to. Sit, stare, do nothing. I promise you: Your boredom will set you free.

Kylie Ora Lobell is an award-winning writer and Community Editor of the Jewish Journal. You can find Kylie on X @KylieOraLobell or Instagram @KylieOraWriter.