I woke up today as I normally do, feeling like I got hit by a truck. I slept in another hour, got up, stumbled downstairs, gulped my coffee, made myself some curry, and answered emails during breakfast. I worked for three hours, and then I walked to the coffee shop to work some more. I walked home, ate dinner, and then worked for the next four hours. There was a phone call with a friend somewhere in all of this. In ten minutes, I will go to bed.
As mundane as it all seems, the truth is that this day is now completely, utterly gone, never to repeat itself, and never to exist again.
Every day of my life is like this, I realize. No matter what I do or what I learn or who I see or how I feel, there is that one constant: that the day that happens is unique. It is unique in the sense that it alone is happening, while all other days have either ceased to happen or have not yet begun to happen. Every day is the only day, and the contents of that day belong to that day and that day only.
Reality is exclusive.
Realizing that every day is unique, unprecedented, and unrepeatable is not just some esoteric insight. It is a practical, useful truth.
Since every day is unique, boredom is the result of inattention.
If I find that on any given day I am bored, feeling like every day is exactly the same and that my life is not interesting, all this means is that I have stopped paying attention to my life. It means I have grown comfortable to a fault, numbed to my environment, deeply complacent and dying in a waking sleep. In other words, if it is true that every day is impossibly and irreconcilably unique, then boredom is an illusion.
This also means that boredom is not a problem in itself.
Boredom is a symptom, not an illness. The illness is a chronic inability to recognize the novel beauty in the mundane, a deficiency that necessarily prevents a person from feeling thrilled or pleased or intrigued in more than a shallow sense. We seek endless new experiences to fill the void. The next hit show on Netflix. The next travel destination. Whatever. Something new, that's the answer. Only for a little while...shallow novelty is like caffeine...the spirit builds up a resistance...more and more is needed...until eventually nothing works.
Relieving the symptom of boredom takes renewed, sustained attention.
If you find that your life is boring and unsatisfying, the problem is not your life. It's your attitude.
It is a fact that there is only one day happening at a time.
It is a fact that no two days are identical.
A million tiny things set each day apart from the next. You just have to learn how to spot them. Once you attune yourself to these tiny things, you become fascinated by your own life.
Every day becomes the most interesting day of your life so far.
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