When I was living in the dark, I would often say I was bored. I would say it like life owed it to me to entertain me. But without putting in any effort myself, I continued to live in a repetitious pattern that only had me spiral down deeper into despair. Life didn’t owe me anything, I owed it to myself to get out there and engage with life.
When I began my journey in recovery, I realized that I had never really thought about, or asked myself, what I truly liked, and most of my life I had just done what I thought I should do, or what I thought looked good from the outside. I had to start with a clean slate. That, at first, seemed daunting, but once I began to look at it as something exciting, something to discover, it turned into something fun I could explore. I started my journey with ‘the year of yes,’ as I called it, I would do my best to say yes to anything, as long as it was healthy for me, that I hadn’t tried before, and it opened the door to new friendships and experiences with newfound friends I found on this same path. Again, a little scary for me coming from a place of isolation but isolating only left me lonely and alone with my disease, so I acknowledged how I felt but off I went on this new adventure! The deal I made with myself was that I only had to try new a thing once, if I didn’t like it, I didn’t have to do it again, but in just saying yes, my world opened up and so did my friend circle. Saying yes never had me bored, because even if I found myself in a situation I wasn’t fond of I was learning from that situation, and, I would challenge myself to look for something positive that I could take from that situation. If I had said yes reluctantly, I would ask the universe to surprise me, and I was, many times, surprised by what I found in those situations I had already condemned in my mind before they had already begun. When I was willing to have an open mind and dive into life, life did give back, two or three-fold, and, I discovered a lot about who I was and what I liked. Saying yes eventually led me to write this blog, something I never thought would have been possible sitting alone in the dark, and, saying yes eventually led me to share my life with someone who teaches me more about myself and what I love every day. Saying yes is the key to boredom.
It is our job to remedy our boredom, it is no one else’s, nor is it owed to us. Like with most things, it is our job to take action, and if we’re able to make that task fun for ourselves, and adventure as I did, we set ourselves up to break free from the walls we had previously built for ourselves and allow new people, places and things in. Still sounds scary? There is some trust that comes into play with this way of life, trust that when we let the universe know what we are doing, what our intentions are and that we are willing to grow that it will present us with opportunities to do just that. I still, 14 years later, continue to say yes to life and my life keeps getting bigger as a result. I never wake up today and think about being bored, there’s far too much to do and see to make time for boredom.
Get out there and engage with life. Each day we have endless possibilities and choices, what if you started saying yes instead of saying I’m bored? SLAY on!
SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you often say that you are bored or have in the past? If you still do, why do you think you are feeling that way? Are you open to new experiences in your life? If you complained of boredom in the past, what changed? What do you do today that keeps boredom at bay? Can you be doing more? Do you keep yourself open to new ideas and situations? If not, why not? What has saying yes brought to your life that you would have otherwise not gotten? Can you be saying yes more than you are? What can you say yes to today? Change and new things can be scary, but staying stuck where we are and not reaching our true potential is much scarier than that.
S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you
