When was the last time you were bored beyond belief?
I hope it was recently.
Let me
explain.
When we are bored — when we don’t have
anyone to talk to, when we don’t have a technological gizmo
at hand to distract us, or when we don’t have a task to
perform — we act differently.
Like children, we
invent ways pass the time.
- Some of us go over mental to do lists.
- Some
of us immediately get anxious.
- Some of us play
little games in our heads to keep us from feeling our
anxiety.
- Some of us just dive into whatever feelings
we are currently feeling.
The last few times
I’ve been bored, I started to pay attention to my breath as it
flowed in
and out of my body. (Once was while I was sitting in
meditation, once was during an official “church” service, and
once was when my wife was out of town and I challenged
myself to stay put for 10 minutes while I sat in our garage.)
It’s amazing how infrequently I notice my own
breath.
Even more amazing is the actual act of
breathing.
We human beings breathe around
17,000-28,000 times a day. And, each of those 12 and 20
times per is a tiny miracle — a miracle that separates us
from the dead.
How absolutely remarkable!
In fact, in Hebrew, the word for soul and the word
for breath are the same.
So, the next time you find
yourself sitting somewhere, bored silly, why not ponder your
own miraculous breathing for a few minutes?
It is
my hope that you will soon be bored so that you can enjoy
this simple religious experience.
Ready? Set?
Breathe!
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