When I have too much to do, I feel stressed. When I have less than that to do, I get bored. There’s no in-between; I’m always either stressed or bored.
I’m conservative and feel more comfortable with what I am accustomed to, but I can’t stand doing the same things the same way. When I go somewhere, I try new routes if I believe that it might save me even a minute. It usually ends up taking more time and makes me late for my appointments.
Because of my idiosyncrasies, daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly routines tend to make me bored. My sense of boredom has increased as I’ve gotten older and feel time go by faster. Even annual events feel like they’re happening monthly. This makes everything seem routine, adding to my sense of boredom.
A recent TV documentary I saw helped break me out of my ennui. It was a 26-part series on World War II that showed soldiers being wounded or killed in battlefields and civilians suffering at home. Solders freeze to death; civilians starve to death; houses are bombed by airplanes; people are killed by bullets.
As I watched this documentary, the question came to my mind: “What did these people dream for?” Probably their main wish was to be able to live a life just like the one I’m living now.
I then realized that things I had taken for granted or even been bored by were in fact great blessings. During times of war, it’s a blessing simply to have food on the table, to sleep without worrying about being bombed, to have a regular workplace to go to. Come to think about it, it’s a great blessing to know with certainty that you will get up from your bed peacefully in the morning, to know that you have a job to do, or to know that you have a place to go after work.
I personally have additional blessings that many people don’t have, such as Sunday worship services where I experience God’s presence every week, Wednesday prayer meetings when I hear many moving testimonies, Saturday morning prayer meetings where I’m challenged by Deacons’ sermons, and our staff and deacons’ meetings where we seek and find God’s will. That these happen regularly should not be a cause for boredom but a reason to be joyful.
God has allowed me to enjoy many blessings in my life over and over again. Instead of being grateful for that, I complained. I’ve repented for that. It’s good for me to realize even now that many of the things I complained about were in fact reasons to be thankful.
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