It’s that time of the year… What can we do differently, how can we improve our lives, how can we look and feel better.
Gym membership traditionally soars in January only to dip again by the start of February when the newbies realise they haven’t got the time, interest or will to factor this regularity into their lives.
Shops bombard us with stuff to replace the stuff that we have outgrown or just wearied of.
Magazines and papers remind us constantly that we should look better/thinner/younger.
Basically, we are being nudged to avoid the state we are in and seek a shinier one.
But wait, time for a rethink.
There is a big difference between looking to improve the things that will genuinely bring us a life more healthy, either physically or psychologically – and hopefully both, but after the stimulus of Christmas, one of the triggers for all this change is the fear of boredom.
There will be times when boredom is inevitable, often when we have no control over our circumstances. Stuck in a traffic jam, a tedious meeting or waiting room we are often unable to change the situation.
But working with couples, it often transpires that one of the things they dread is the thought of slowly creeping ordinariness and the feeling that they can become a prisoner to this.
Partners become so well know to each other that every comment, joke and conversation is a well trodden landscape, so predictable that they are no longer curious about each other. Couples need the security and safe attachment that is the flip side of this, but it’s up to each of us to keep interested and interesting. Relationships are no different. We don’t always need outside stimulation, sometimes it’s enough to cook together, play a board game, listen to music together or go for a walk somewhere new and try to rediscover what we once found so interesting about each other.
The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes said Susan Sontag.
Don’t lets allow a yawn-making apathy obsess us and obliterate our ability to live in the moment.
It’s tedium that usually drives us to check our phones and screens for something to obliterate a gap in the day. Noise and messaging will cover up any emptiness. Yet it’s those gaps in life that give us space for thought and a chance to be at peace with our own minds and think creatively for ourselves, without waiting for connection to cyberspace or TV to anaesthetise us.
Dorothy Parker wisely told us that the cure for boredom is curiosity – there is no cure for curiosity…

Christina Fraser