I Got Bored And I Am Ashamed Of That

It got boring.

That is the reason. Not time, not money, not a crisis, not anything that would sound respectable if somebody asked. It stopped because it stopped being interesting, somewhere around the third week.

And you have never said that out loud, because saying it out loud sounds like something a child would say.

So instead there have been other reasons. Work got busy, which was true. The weather, which was also true. Various things came up, all genuine, none of them the reason.

Here is why that matters more than it looks. As long as the stated reason is wrong, no solution can be found, because every solution is aimed at the wrong problem. More time does not fix boredom. A free weekend does not fix boredom. A better plan certainly does not.

And there is a second cost, which is quieter and heavier. Carrying a trivial sounding reason in secret makes a person feel trivial, and that feeling attaches itself to the person rather than to the stage of the work.

You are a woman with an honest reason, and boredom has never once been too small a thing to have stopped a real piece of work.

To every thing there is a season

There is a line at the start of the third chapter of Ecclesiastes, and what it does not do is the important part.

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven. (Ecclesiastes 3:1, King James Version)

A time to every purpose.

And then the chapter runs a list. A time to plant and a time to pluck up. A time to break down and a time to build up. A time to keep silence and a time to speak.

And here is what to notice. Not one of those seasons is ranked above another. There is no hierarchy in the list, no first class and second class, nothing marked as a real season and nothing marked as a lesser one.

You have a chapter that names every season without ranking one of them, and a dull stretch has never once been a lesser season than an interesting one. Ecclesiastes 3:1 puts every purpose under the same heading, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that a relief rather than a flattening.

And the word purpose is worth stopping on. Every purpose has a time. Every one. Which includes the tedious ones, the ones nobody wants, the ones that produce nothing memorable.

The chapter is remarkably matter of fact about it. There is no encouragement anywhere in it and no apology either. It simply lists what a life contains.

You were never being asked to find a dull season interesting, and a stretch with nothing in it has never once required a better attitude to be got through. The Spirit of God is the one who is present in a season that nobody would choose, and Ecclesiastes 3:1 names the times without praising any of them.

Boredom is a real force and it is not a fault

So here is the practical claim, and the precision in it is what removes the shame.

Boredom is not a lack of seriousness. It is what happens in a person when the work stops producing any change that the mind can detect.

That is a mechanical description. It is about signal, not about character. And it is the exact condition of the second coat, the long sanding, the middle of any run of repeated identical actions.

You are meeting a mechanical fact and not a fault, and boredom has never once been a measure of how much somebody cared. Ecclesiastes 3:1 gives every purpose its time without comment, and the Holy Spirit is the one who keeps a mechanism from becoming a judgment.

And here is what to do about it, which is much less noble than a person expects.

Do not try to make it interesting. That does not work and everybody who has tried it knows it does not work. The second coat cannot be made interesting by anybody.

Occupy the part of you that has gone looking for signal. Put something on. Music, a broadcast, somebody talking. Anything that gives the bored part of a person something to be doing while the hands do the repetitive thing.

You have a way to work through a dull stretch that costs nothing at all, and something playing in the background has never once made the work less real. The Spirit of God is the one who is present through an ordinary hour of repetitive work, and the written word gives every purpose its own time without requiring anybody to enjoy it.

And one more thing, and it is the mercy here. Saying it out loud removes almost all of the weight.

You have a sentence available tonight that takes the triviality off you, and an honest reason said plainly has never once been a childish one. Ecclesiastes 3:1 lists the ordinary contents of a life without ranking them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who is present when a woman says a small true thing out loud in an empty room.

Say it, then fifteen minutes with something on

Here is the assignment and it comes in that order for a reason.

First, say out loud that it got boring.

To nobody. In the room, on your own, in a normal voice. It got boring. That is why it stopped.

You have a true reason that can be said out loud in four seconds, and naming the real one has never once been the same as making an excuse. Ecclesiastes 3:1 names the seasons plainly, and the Holy Spirit is the one in that room while a woman says something she has been embarrassed about.

Then do fifteen minutes of the boring part with something playing.

Music, a broadcast, somebody talking, whatever you would put on for a long drive. Turn it on before you start, not after five minutes, by which time the bored part has already won.

Fifteen minutes. The dullest available part. Hands doing the repetitive thing and the rest of you somewhere else entirely.

And here is the thing to notice at the end. It will not have been interesting. That is not the aim and it was never going to be. What it will have been is done, which is the only thing this stage has ever needed.