7 August 2008

Chairman of the bored

There was an email in my inbox this morning: "7 things your site needs to rank #1". Oh,yes, but I bet it doesn't list the first thing I need: ambition. I've just read the email, and, no, it doesn't. It presumes, as it would, that I've already got that in spades. And dedication, and motivation, and all the other positive 'tion' words that can be found in any good Thesaurus. Bah, humbug.

So I thought I'd start writing a round robin type email to friends and family saying what we're up to and things that are happening. Began by saying that UPL has got her ceramics business up and running, she paints almost daily, and she has a couple of blogs she keeps up with and half a dozen friends with whom she emails back and forth on a regular basis, busy, busy, busy. As for me.....well, I go out to work occasionally, though not as often as I used to or would like to, I do a bit of web site design/building from time to time, nothing too time consuming except at the time I'm doing it, and apart from that? Not a lot. No, really, very little at all. Occasionally I get asked "Can you possibly go and do ....?", so that keeps me active for a while, or "We need to ....", often meaning that I need to, as I'm the main adult French speaker in the house, so fair enough. Apart from that, though, I spend my time either feeling guilty that I'm not doing anything constructive towards our/my future, towards keeping the house maintained/improved or towards keeping the children amused/occupied (and this is the holidays, after all, so it's harder with all three at home), or feeling bored.

And then I wondered this morning, lying in bed late and not getting up to embrace the sunshine (admittedly it was regularly being hidden by drifting clouds), that perhaps I am boring. Perhaps it's only boring people who are bored. Exciting people are exciting because they get on and do things, because they have things to DO, and are consequently not bored.

So, what to do, to change the way I am to the way I want to be? What are the 7 things my life needs to rank #1? That can be my latest project, to think about my life and what it is and decide where to go and what to do. Mind you, having clicked on the link in the email I had in my inbox this morning, I discovered that I had to pay $2.95 for a free 21-day insight into the right techniques to improve my site's ratings (followed by $27 per month if I forget to write in and say thanks but no thanks), so no doubt I will have to pay something, somehow, somewhere, for improving life's ranking, but, as they say, you have to spend to make.

Come back next week and see how I'm getting on. Or next month, perhaps - I may be so busy doing things that I don't have the time any more.

6 comments:

  1. This really struck a chord. When I am working and busy I am strongly aware of being too much away from home and from the things i want to do. when I am at home for a few days I am remarkably bad at energising myself and can often be found logging on simply to see what if anything has happened (almost always nothing at all) at my blog/the various websites I find interesting. A dynamic person would be doing something. My slow conclusion is that I am the kind of person who is energised by contact with others so, if I am going to stop doing what I have been paid for over the last twenty years, I need to get out there and meet people or I will go slowly and gently and imperceptibly mad.

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  2. I don't think you should worry about being boring (and I am sure you are not) - you should only worry about being bored.

    Motivation may be what you are seeking? Follow your bliss as Joseph Campbell said.

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  3. Thanks for those comments. I think I am just bored, though I'm sure at times I can be boring, too, and I wouldn't really want to hang out in my company.

    Tried cutting the grass yesterday, but after 20 minutes rain stopped play, so that wasn't as satisfying as it could have been.

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  4. Start a cricket team, Jacko. I do believe there are several in France now. Just think of all those hours lounging on the boundary when you are either out, having, of course, scored a magnificent total, or waiting to go into bat. No one who watches cricket can ever be bored or boring....

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  5. And the most boring thing of all ? dealing with French bureaucracy, now surely that should keep you fully occupied and on your tippy toes ? Non, come down anytime and watch paint dry.

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  6. Boring rules. Being boring is up there with navel gazing, daydreaming, aimless pondering and mooching around as one of my personal favourite occupations/attributes. Anyone who tries to break you out of the mould is a Bad Person.

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