Cheer Up! It's National Anti-Boredom Month

"What's wrong with being a boring kind of guy?" ~ George Bush

Vacant, aloof, lethargic and sluggish...(Yawwwwn)...while lazily going through my calendar to see what I might write about this week...(Yawwwwn)...I drowsily discovered that this month is...(Yawwwwn)...National Anti-Boredom Month. (I somehow missed Nude Recreation Week -- oh well, there's always next year-whatever...Yawwwwn.)

Warm breezes and l-o-o-o-o-n-g lazy days filled with sunshine make this the...(Yawwwwn)...ideal season for boredom. Relax, put your feet up...(Yawwwwn), maybe catch some shut-eye...

When our guards are down, it's also when we notice dumb stuff: cumulous clouds dancing across the crisp blue sky forming puffs that mimic mops, a windless whirl of cirrus that suddenly darkens into shadows of dustpans, and curls and swirls of nimbus clouds making unmistakable impressions of utility buckets. (What? I may occasionally get bored...(Yawwwwn)...but did you forget for a moment that I'm first and foremost a clean freak?)

OK, OK, snap out of it...enough of this nonsense!

While boredom is fine for a moment or two, for those of us who usually have ants in our pants, we're too busy to be bored -- most of the time, we're doing, doing, doing. (We just can't make those voices shut-up!) If you're anything like me, more often than being bored, you're inquiring, inquisitive, interested, interfering, intrusive, and investigating. And those are all good things, because the antidote to boredom is, yup...you guessed it...curiosity. (It may have killed the proverbial cat, but dollars to doughnuts, it won't kill you.)

Curiosity happens when you enthusiastically explore your environment, survey your options, and simultaneously own both awe and doubt. It all starts with questioning the nuances of life, challenging the systems already in place, and bucking the authority around you. Because, if you didn't already know, asking leads to knowing, knowing leads to understanding, understanding leads to thinking, thinking leads to mindfulness, and mindfulness leads to creativity.

So go out there and think that you can do anything, allow the world to be your oyster, examine the novelties around you, and embrace our changeable world. Albert Einstein long ago said, "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing." Now there's a man who was never bored!

So have fun, and while you're allowing the world to be your oyster, remember that you can remove that smell of oysters from your hands by rubbing them with a halved lemon dipped in salt (What -- did you actually think I would end this piece without a helpful cleaning tip!!??)

So, no matter what your age, stay curious, use your head, commit to learning one new thing every day, and always remember...when you say that you're bored, others might just think you're boring.