Never Say You’re Bored

Last updated on May 5, 2025

I made the mistake of telling my mom I was bored once.

Just once.

It was a summer day, I must’ve been about nine and I wandered into the kitchen dragging my feet, dramatically declaring my state of despair. “I’m booooored,” I said, expecting sympathy or maybe a suggestion for something fun.

Instead, she froze, spatula in hand and gave me the look. You know the one. Calm. Clear. Slightly amused. Slightly terrifying.

Then she said something I’ve never forgotten:
“Never say you’re bored. Life is never boring.”

It wasn’t a punishment. There was no scolding, no rant about how lucky I was to have free time. Just that one line. Delivered with a kind of quiet conviction that told me she meant every word.

Now let me tell you a little something about my mom.

She is tiny, just barely five feet tall but don’t let her size fool you. Her wisdom runs deep, all the way to the pure, crystalline core of her soul. She’s also the most freakishly positive person I’ve ever met. I don’t say that lightly. This woman could find a silver lining in a hurricane.

She loves walking and I don’t mean for exercise. I mean walking to people. She’ll walk up to complete strangers in parking lots and ask about their day. She’ll strike up conversations with dogs and babies and flowers. If someone’s hurting, she walks right into their pain with compassion. If someone’s celebrating, she’s instantly part of the parade. She walks through life…fully present, fully alive, fully engaged.

So when she said, “Life is never boring,” she wasn’t making a statement. She was giving me a lifelong strategy.

To her, boredom wasn’t about having nothing to do. It was about forgetting to see.

“There’s always something to explore,” she said. “Something to learn. Something to love.”

And even at nine years old, some part of me tucked that wisdom away. Maybe it was the way she said it. Maybe it was the fact that she plugged in the vacuum and said go to town. (Let’s just say I didn’t declare boredom again anytime soon.)

But the lesson stuck.

Now, as an adult, whenever I catch myself in that restless, fidgety feeling…when nothing seems interesting, when everything feels flat and uninspired, I pause. And I hear her voice from that nine-year-olds perspective, pure and open.

Life is never boring.

And she’s right.

Life is hilarious and messy and mysterious and occasionally absurd. It’s loud and quiet, gentle and wild. It’s filled with textures and temperatures and colors and stories. And it’s always offering us something to experience, if we’re willing to look.

Sometimes we miss it because we’re too busy waiting for something big to happen. We think the moment has to be important to be interesting. But most of life is made in the in-between. The ordinary, easily overlooked places. The way the sunlight hits the floor in the morning. The sound of a neighbor’s child laughing and playing through an open window. A fresh peach. A song you forgot you loved. A spark of an idea that’s just beginning to form.

And sometimes we miss it because we’re stuck in our heads. Replaying the past. Worrying about the future. Scrolling through someone else’s highlight reel. Meanwhile, life is right here, waving its arms like, Hey, I’m over here! Want to play?

So if you ever find yourself saying, “I’m bored,” I invite you to ask yourself a different question instead:

What am I missing that’s right in front of me?

Maybe it’s a task you’ve been avoiding that could turn into a flow state. Maybe it’s a walk around the block that opens your heart. Maybe it’s a call to your mom. (She’ll definitely cure your boredom, trust me.)

The antidote to boredom isn’t more noise. It’s more engagement. More curiosity. More presence.

So go engage with your life. Touch something. Try something. Ask a better question. Listen for a new answer. Because your life…your wild, weird, beautiful, unfinished masterpiece of a life is not boring.

It might be quiet.
It might be uncertain.
But it’s never empty. Never meaningless. Never without something to love or learn or notice.

And if you forget, don’t worry. Just walk toward something. Or better yet, walk like my mom does, to someone. You might be surprised how much more interesting the world becomes when you show up with your eyes open and your spirit curious.

Thanks, Mom…for teaching me that boredom isn’t real.
And that the secret to living fully is staying wildly curious.

Happy Mother’s Day, mom!  Your wisdom makes us all better people. 

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