I’d like to consider myself as someone who does not get bored easily, if at all. My dad told me when I was younger that only boring people get bored, and since then I’ve strove to always occupy my mind in some way, whether it be making up some sort of game in my head or striking up a new conversation with someone or following an engaging train of thought. But recently I have been realising that maybe being bored isn’t always a bad thing. I was attempting to write a short answer essay question, and I would find a really strong flow, but after only a couple minutes I would be distracted, picking at my nails or remembering something I meant to look up yesterday and googling it.

This was a frustrating realisation because I don’t want to admit short-form media and the uptick in instant gratification has had that large of an effect on me, because normally I love sitting down and writing something dedicatedly for a good amount of time. But that made me think that I haven’t read more than 15 pages of a book in one sitting and haven’t felt restless, like I could or even should be doing something else with my time. And maybe that’s because my reading time has been reduced to snatches before bed and on busses to uni, but reading in these recent moments is mainly a source of distraction on my way to somewhere else. I could just be in a transitional moment where my mind feels like it’s sending tendrils of thought down so many avenues which is resulting in a reduced attention span as there are so many things to occupy it, and it could also be that I am simply out of practice of writing critical analysis. Regardless of the root cause, it’s a good reminder to take some time and intentionally sit down with a book, and only a book, no tea or music, and sit in the moment to retrain my attention span and experiment with being bored.

Adelaide McGlothlin