For the past couple weeks, I’ve had the blahs. On my commute, I wonder, Is this all there is? At home, I go through the motions of dishes, laundry, tidying up the house. I considered whether my seasonal depression was making an early appearance this year, but in pondering my situation, it hit me: I’m bored.
At work I’m bored with plenty to keep me busy but nothing that’s really new or different or challenging in an interesting way, and the pace of work is a notch below my preference. Knowing the rhythms of the organization where I work, I caution myself that this is the calm before the storm, but still I struggle to find gratitude for the relative calm.
At home I say I welcome the autumnal return of routine, but I feel that something is missing. I’m grateful that I’m finding the self-discipline to get a full night’s sleep and yet every evening—even on the weekend—feels too much the same.
Having put my finger on what’s behind my current blahs, in conversation with someone yesterday, I came up with a list of possible remedies:
wake up a bit earlier in the morning to do something different—take a short walk, read something, write a newsletter
intentionally choose a different restaurant or cafe for take-out night or date night
resume my project to visit each of the 41 libraries in my county’s system
take a different route on my commute home
visit a local lake and spend a little while enjoying time near the water
find a new-to-me local trail to hike
This morning I overdid it on switching things up. I read from two books, rearranged the printer station in our family room, moved a small dresser into my bedroom and wrote this newsletter. Getting a late start heading to the office might make the pace feel faster this morning at work. (We’ll see.) The bottom line is that I feel like I know the problem, and I have some potential solutions.
If you have a list of what to do when you’re bored, what’s on it? What helps bring you out of the blahs?