Boredom is Good

Boredom is Good – it lets you know you’ve learnt something and can move on to look at something new.

This is wisdom from the Japanese martial arts where endless repetitions are the norm, shared by my associate Francis Briers at the last somatics day we held. Modern Western culture says things should to be fun and exciting all the time and doesn’t really like long-term practice, delayed gratification and commitment. This is problematic. Francis mentioned how the Japanese could refine anything into an artform by moving beyond giving up when bored to refine, refine, refine. The tea ceremony for example. The British love tea, but we dont see it as a path to enlightenment like chadō.

Frankie then went on to say then why not accountancy-do? Why stop learning when things get boring when you can keep going deeper? In Zen all you do is sit, so it can really be done with anything. My question for business, training and HR folks reading this is how can you turn your life of work into a work of art? (To steal a phase from Tom Crum). What’s beyond boredom?

…………………………..

So What: Boring is good – it lets you go deeper.