July 15, 2026
When I was a child there was
one thing that I learned, very early on, not to say to my mother. Two simple
words that now, as a fully grown adult I understand are words spoken, at one
time or another by every child who ever lived. But at the time, the shock of some
of the outcomes of expressing those words left a scar on my psyche that is
still there.
Those two words? I’m bored.
Yes, if I ever said them
within my mother’s hearing, you could bet your cute little tushy she would find
me something to do. And it wasn’t a fun something to do, either. I learned as
much about parenting from my mother’s successes as from her mistakes (though
she would never admit to having made any mistakes, not ever). She was as stoic
bordering on ungiving, when it came to anything emotional, as I believe it was
possible for a person to be. One of the outcomes of her demeanor was that,
growing up, I felt unloved. My answer to that experience was that my children
grew up suffering my hugs and words of love and affirmation every day.
Now friends, I can tell you
here and now that when my children said those two words to me, my response was
to suggest they find something to do. To play and use their imaginations. Not
that I didn’t expect chores from them. I certainly did. But I didn’t look at
them as a source of free labour. They were children. They had the right of free
speech as well as the responsibility that comes from being a part of a family.
They had a right to say they were bored if that was how they felt. I wasn’t
going to punish them for that.
I do credit my mother’s influence
for my attitude toward boring jobs. Not just jobs around the house,
either. When I worked outside the home, it was office work I performed, mostly
in the field of accounting. Talk about boring? Hundreds of invoices to process
every month, very little that was unique; all the long tasks of clerical work
required to produce financial statements…that can be boring, let me tell you. So,
I would play mental guessing games. How many invoices could I process in the
next half hour? How many would be in this category of expense, as opposed to
that one? Re-reading those last few lines, I may have to split the credit for
my reaction to boring tasks. Half for mother, and half for Mary Poppins and her
spoonful of sugar.
I still use that tactic today
whenever I’m faced with something to do that requires attention but little
thinking. When I’m preparing the laundry, there are literally piles of things
to be sorted, sprayed with pre-treatment solutions, separated into actual baskets.
You get the idea. I don’t need to use any sort of mind games to get the dishes
done. I simply was them (by hand as I have never had a working dishwasher).
Doesn’t take long at all.
It took more than my mother’s
influence for me to master the art of waiting for appointments—or during them.
It also took the wisdom that comes with age. Here, I can tell you my cell phone
helps. I do have three games on my phone, and when I am waiting, I tend to turn
to that little device for diversion.
From the menu of life, sitting
and doing nothing is not a combo I order—unless I’m under the weather. And
then, like it said on that old poster one used to be able to buy and hang, if I
sits, I falls asleep. Hopefully that sleeping happens at home and not out in
the wider world.
Apparently, I snore.
The whole point of today’s essay
is this: Growing up, one learned coping mechanisms, because life didn’t always
go as planned—and few children were allowed to believe it ever would. Crap
happening is as eternal as the sun rising in the east. The person with the best
chance of getting to old aged relatively unscathed was the one who not only learned
that lesson but mastered it.
And now that I am older, I
know something I never even considered until very recently. The person who
doesn’t learn how to cope with the dross of life not only guarantees themselves
a miserable life experience; they tend to spread it around so that they don’t
suffer alone.
Love,
Morgan
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury
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