One of my neighborhood grocery stores has a decent buffet in one corner. Last Friday I stopped in for a few groceries, and also got myself a couple things from the buffet–salmon and sweet potatoes! Hey, it was just a snack, and I don’t get enough fish in my diet, so don’t judge me lol.
Anyway, they have a little seating area, and a mother (I’m assuming) and her approximately 4-year-old daughter sat at the table next to me with their food. As the little girl sat down, her mother immediately asked, “Do you want to watch a movie?”
Out flew the iPad and the movie, and within seconds the kid was absorbed in another world–a digital world, of course.
Much has been written about this–I’VE probably written about this. But IF this type of interaction between this mother and child is not an isolated incident, but has happened hundreds of times before, then I wonder how is this child’s brain being shaped, among other questions it raises for me?
And I don’t mean to be unempathetic. I get it that parents need breaks. Amen. I remember plopping my own kids in front of the TV to watch Sesame Street more than once.
It’s a different animal now, though. Ok, I know you’re probably not interested in my social commentary. Trust me, part of me wants to rant at all the stupid parts of the brave new social media-saturated mind-numbing techno on-demand vapid world we live in, where we’re amusing ourselves to death, but I won’t. (See how I snuck that in?)
Do you ever remember being bored as a kid? We all do. But we may have different experiences with boredom based on how old we are and what generation we belong to, and what sources of distraction and entertainment were available to us.
But it seems hard to be bored today with so many options of “mentally fiddling around” at our fingertips. However, ironically, so much of what people reach for when they’re bored only makes them more bored. Is “scrolling” really what we’re craving when we’re bored? Maybe sometimes. You tell me. But that doesn’t always scratch the itch, it often aggravates the itch.
So as much as I love technology and appreciate all the ways it’s made my life easier, here are a few suggestions off the top of my head to try, instead of so quickly filling your mental space with techno-goop whenever you have a lull in your life . . .
1- Just be bored.
Ha! What?? “I hate being bored!” I have a family member who fell onto the couch during a family gathering and lamented, “I’m BORED.” And 2 seconds later–I’m not exaggerating–she said, with a lilt in her voice, “I can go an AMAZON!”
She didn’t even give her brain a chance to conjure up any options. The decision tree in her head went from “I’m bored” directly to “Scroll through Amazon.”
How about this–just be bored? I remember as a kid, back in the olden days of the 60’s and 70s, when the cool technology was having a remote control for your TV, which we didn’t have. If WE were bored, my Mom would say, “Go outside and play.” That was the decision tree in my Mom’s head–in fact, in EVERY mom’s head.
Guess what? We always figured out how to cure the boredom.
Me, my brothers, and neighborhood buddies could literally figure out a game or invent a new sport with a stick and a piece of cardboard.
And if we didn’t figure out what to do? Oh. Well. We at least had to go through the experience of struggling with ourselves and each other, and dealing with that internal and external friction.
2- Embrace the stillness and the silence, rather than chasing it away.
And while we all could benefit from literal stillness and silence, sometimes we have to nurture inner stillness when we’re in the midst of outer chaos.
I live in the heart of Chicago. There’s traffic and sirens and freight trains and trucks and planes constantly in the background (yes, sometimes gunshots, in case you’re wondering). Nevertheless, I can’t wait for my “day in the woods” to calm my spirit, I have to figure out how to nurture that stillness with all this “stuff” going on around me.
And just so you know, it’s very possible. I’ve figured out what works for me.
But so many people can’t stand the silence. They have to fill it with NOISE. And that’s their decision tree: Inner silence > turn on a contraption to drown out the silence.
No. Learn to sit in stillness and silence. Learn? Oh yes, many (most??) have no idea how to do this, or even why.
3- Ponder and mull over . . . you know, THINK.
This related to #2. As we sit in our stillness, we can do a few things, but one thing we can do is chew on that one thing we’ve been trying to make sense of–a decision, a new idea or concept, a problem, a recent experience, a hard reality.
How much pondering and mulling over is done these days? Will our 4-year-old grocery store buffet friend learn to ponder as she grows up, or will she learn to scroll Tik Tok?
4- Practice mindfulness.
This is something that may take time to develop. What if YOU were in that grocery store buffet? Take a look around! There are a bunch of interesting characters out there, at least in my world. Notice the smells from that buffet. What sounds are you hearing? I’m hearing people speaking Polish, Spanish, and English as I’m eating my salmon and sweet potato.
5- Let your mind wander and figure out where it wants to go.
This is passive thinking rather than active thinking. Pondering and mulling over are active thinking. But this is different.
Passive thinking can turn into active thinking, if an idea or thought gets traction, or is interesting to us.
So let’s think of THIS now. What benefits are there to downshifting our mental stimulation, and creating some open space in our mind? WHY would I want to do any of the above??
Are there benefits to embracing a “free-range brain” from time to time, rather than being mentally “penned in” by spoon-fed media?
We’ll have to come back to this another time, as I’ve already gone on a bit.
In the meantime, allow some mental space before immediately filling it with “mental cotton candy,” and see if you can apply any of the above 5 ideas.
Until next time, take good care,
Sean