Boring

I have been given the opportunity for the last 3 weeks to nightly read about a boring bear named Bob. I figure I have read aloud the word boring approximately 315 times in less than a month. It’s the six letter word that won't leave my brain, no matter how much hymn humming I do.

I remember being bored as a kid. I used to be bored in the summer time when I'd finished a book and didn't have another one, or when there was half an hour until dinnertime and nothing on T.V. I’d be bored on long car-rides to Utah and waiting to pick my brother and sisters up from violin.

Sometimes when I’m reading the Bob book, I wish Bob would say that he is dripping in ennui. If you're a geek like me then you will pronouce it en-you-aye, if you're a smarty pants, French, or you looked it up on dictionary.com you'll say awn-wee which means a feeling of utter weariness and discontent resulting from satiety or lack of interest. But I think it would make Bob less Bob if he used the word ennui. It’s just not a word Bob would use or need to use to impress me.

Have you ever read Man's Search for Meaning by Victor Frankle? It's good. He says that happiness in life comes from having a purpose. He lived through World War II in a concentration camp because he was desperate to write a book. I totally buy into his theory.

The thing that surprised me the most as I’ve been thinking about being bored, is that I realized I haven’t been bored for a really long time. And I’ve come to the conclusion that it isn’t because I have hoards of little children and their needs swirling around my waist, or because I'm a naive homeowner with aspirations, or because I belong to an organization that requests a lot of my time, or even because I have a few different and time consuming goals I'd like to meet although that has to factor in some. I think it’s because I've finally determined what I want to and can do with passion in my life. And I'm going to do it. Even if the other 6,916,695,381 folks in the world think it’s ridiculous or could care less. I kinda think that’s what’s held me back before. I hope somehow that the world is a better place because I'm doing what jives with the heart of me. But my littleness, my speck of dustishness, my hopeless averageness, I don't find it discouraging right now.

Back to boring ol’ Bob, of course he’s the protagonist of his tale. And the author is nudging you to realize that even though Bob thinks he's boring, he isn't. He's got a full laundry folding, vanilla ice-cream eating, plant dusting, sitting on the couch life. He figured out who he is and he lives it with impunity. Thanks for making me think Bob. But it's time for you to go back to the library now.

P.S. – Man, a blog feels self-centered. And one row of my garden has germinated – the row that had lettuce in it. No other rows showed any signs of life. I’ll give it a few more days. The nice people neighbors I have, they tilled up some more dirt for me and hoed my rows. I was able to plant some more. I hope I didn’t call a thunderstorm down by doing that.