Sitting Quietly When Bored

Boredom is not a condition that requires treatment. It is a state to be endured with grace.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when a man could sit in a room with nothing to occupy him and simply be present. He could wait for a train, attend a tedious function, or endure a conversation that did not interest him without reaching into his pocket for a device that would transport him elsewhere. That time has passed, and I have watched your era replace every quiet moment with stimulation, as though silence were a design flaw rather than a feature of civilised existence.

You will find yourself bored: at dinners, at meetings, at gatherings where the conversation has turned to subjects that hold no interest for you whatsoever. The temptation will be to reach for your telephone. Do not.

A man who looks at his telephone while someone is speaking has announced, without words, that the person in front of him is less interesting than whatever is on the screen. This may well be true. It is not, however, information that needs sharing.

Sit still. Maintain a neutral, attentive expression. You need not contribute to every conversation, but you must appear present in the ones of which you are a part. Nod where appropriate. Make eye contact at reasonable intervals. If you are asked a direct question, answer it; if you are not, silence is entirely acceptable and far preferable to the fidgeting, sighing, and covert glancing at one’s wrist that constitute the modern vocabulary of impatience.

The discomfort you feel when bored is not a signal that something is wrong; it is merely your mind objecting to the absence of entertainment, and it will pass. You are not being damaged by a slow evening. You are being asked to exist in a room without distraction, which is something every generation before yours managed without apparent difficulty and which you, with some practice, can manage as well.

If, however, you find that sitting still is genuinely intolerable, that the restlessness has settled into your limbs and will not be reasoned with, then the correct response is not the telephone. It is a walk. The gentlemen of my era took a constitutional daily, purposefully, outdoors in all weather. The health advice of the time praised brisk walking and noted that even ten minutes in steady rain would make the blood circulate vigorously. They were not wrong. A short walk, taken with purpose and without a destination that requires arriving, will settle the mind more thoroughly than any amount of scrolling, and it has the additional virtue of requiring you to put on your shoes and stand upright, which is itself a kind of discipline.

Practice this. The next time you are waiting (for an appointment, for a friend, for a bus) do not reach for the telephone. Sit. Observe. Think, or do not think. And if the sitting truly defeats you, walk. The world will continue without your attention, and you may find, if you allow yourself the experiment, that the quiet is not empty at all.