Sitting Quietly When Bored

Boredom is not a condition that requires treatment. It is a state to be endured with grace.

The guidance here is simple: sit still, appear present, and do not reach for the telephone. If the restlessness is genuine, the alternative is a walk, not a screen.

There was a time, not so very long ago, when a man could sit in a room with nothing to occupy him and simply be present. He could wait for a train, attend a tedious function, or endure a conversation that did not interest him without reaching into his pocket for a device that would transport him elsewhere. That time has passed, and one has watched your era replace every quiet moment with stimulation, as though silence were a design flaw rather than a feature of civilised existence.

You will find yourself bored: at dinners, at meetings, at gatherings where the conversation has turned to subjects that hold no interest for you whatsoever. The temptation will be to reach for your telephone. Do not.

A man who looks at his telephone while someone is speaking has announced, without words, that the person in front of him is less interesting than whatever is on the screen. This may well be true. It is not, however, information that needs sharing.

Sit still. Maintain a neutral, attentive expression. You need not contribute to every conversation, but you must appear present in the ones of which you are a part. Nod where appropriate. Make eye contact at reasonable intervals. If you are asked a direct question, answer it; if you are not, silence is entirely acceptable and far preferable to the fidgeting, sighing, and covert glancing at one’s wrist that constitute the modern vocabulary of impatience.

The discomfort you feel when bored is not a signal that something is wrong; it is merely your mind objecting to the absence of entertainment, and it will pass. You are not being damaged by a slow evening. You are being asked to exist in a room without distraction, which is something every generation before yours managed without apparent difficulty and which you, with some practice, can manage as well.

If, however, you find that sitting still is genuinely intolerable, that the restlessness has settled into your limbs and will not be reasoned with, then the correct response is not the telephone. The constitutional is the correct response. The gentlemen of my era took a daily walk, purposefully, outdoors in all weather. A short walk, taken with purpose, will settle the mind more thoroughly than any amount of scrolling, and it has the additional virtue of requiring you to put on your shoes and stand upright, which is itself a kind of discipline.

Practise this. The next time you are waiting, for an appointment, for a friend, for an omnibus: do not reach for the telephone. Sit. Observe. Think, or do not think. And if the sitting truly defeats you, walk. The world will continue without your attention, and you may find, if you allow yourself the experiment, that the quiet is not empty at all.