Many (most) of my Frolic 100 article writing comes from the prompt “What do I need to hear most right now?” However, today I asked “What am I scared to admit right now?” and I had an immediate answer: This is all there is.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been coming to terms that I’m dealing with another existential crisis, possibly the 3rd in my life. There are ebbs and flows. This one caught my attention because of a feeling of boredom I hadn’t felt before.
Normally, I’m a big lover of boredom. I have an unbelievably open schedule, and always have. Money didn’t make this possible for me, I’ve been living a life of space and openness for a long time. My best friend remarked to me almost 30 years ago that I was “successfully underemployed”. That phrase never left me.
Boredom is where creativity can show up. I regularly feel bad for people that can’t even let themselves have a minute of boredom before resorting to electronic stimulation. This is why “shower thoughts” can be so profound – one of the last places we are disconnected.
I enjoy having the possibility of “shower thoughts” regularly throughout my day.
My last business partner used to tell me “Sounds like you need to walk to the store” when I was stumped on a problem, because he knew my method – walk to the store, without electronic distraction, and the answer would show up. I can think of a specific solution to a tech problem I was having simulating an iPhone live stream that I came to from one of those walks – something no one has ever copied, and generated us millions of dollars in revenue from having something our competitors never figured out. All from a bored walk.
Because I’m very familiar with that “good” type of boredom, this other type of boredom was surprising.
By contrast, it did not have the potential of expansion. It was a wet blanket of constriction. Distracting myself with video games or TV didn’t help either.
Because I’m familiar with existential crisis from my past, I quickly recognized the signs.
I also came to a surprising insight. For the last several years I’ve been in an uncomfortable place where what I “do” in the world is completely disconnected from how I make my money. It’s left me without language at times to describe what it is that I do, and left me in a search to find the thing.
Feeling this boredom, and the fact that I had not felt this previously, revealed that I’ve been spending my time, and all these years now, doing the things I wanted and living a fulfilled life, even if I can’t define it well.
And that led me to my second insight: This is all there is.
And I think I’m good with that. It seems less scary now that I’ve said it.
I don’t have more answers, because maybe there aren’t any. I was afraid, and now I’m less so.
That sounds positive to me.
