Thank God it's Friday

Thank God It’s Friday!

You may have heard this a lot.  Perhaps you even say it to yourself as soon as you wake up and realize that today is Friday.  Why do we love Friday so much?  Is it because we can party all night since the next day we don’t have to go to work?  The reason why we love Friday so much is simply because of this: to get out of our daily routines… also known as ‘boredom.’

Boredom hits every aspects of life known to man.  It hits you hard and without pity.  Boredom targets not only at people who work in offices from 9-5 but also stay-at-home moms, and most often than not, marriages.   

First, we have to acknowledge that boredom is a part of life.  You get bored from working, from doing house chores, from being a house-wife, and bored in your marriage.  Boredom is not only part of life, but it is also natural.  We are human beings that are equipped in facing challenges and obstacles, ready for an amazing and exciting adventure that life has to offer.  But what if you don’t live an adventurous life?  What if you are conforming to the mundane and the routines of day to day life?  Then boredom slips in, quietly but surely.   If left untreated, boredom can become a disease that is very hard to cure.  How you deal with it and get out of it is the key.

How do you get rid of boredom?

By changing the routines.  It is quite simple. 

Stay-at-home moms: instead of waking up in the wee hours of the morning then straight to making breakfast, why not go do laundry first.  The kids can wait 5 minutes longer for their breakfast, as long as your boredom goes away.  Because if you don’t change the order of things, the boredom will frustrate you and you won’t be at your best behavior when dealing with your family.  It is tiring just to think of the list of chores you have to do for the day.  But if you change even the tiniest thing, you’ll be in a more relaxed state of mind.  Changes start small.  Unimportant really, but it is what matters most.

The funny thing about boredom is even though people hate it so much, yet they don’t want to get out of it.  Boredom is actually their comfort zone, whether they like to admit it or not.  When you find yourself being bored from being a house-wife, we are so tempted to just give the kids to the nanny and go back to work.  So many times I wanted to do that, yet at the very thought of working scares the hell out of me.  Therefore, I go back to being bored, and convinced myself that this is it!  This is the life I should lead!  When you find yourself doing something, your mind and body would tell you, ‘Hey, don’t  work so hard… remember when you were bored and did nothing, just watch television?  Wasn’t it fun?’  I am actually afraid to get out of my comfort zone.  It is truly a love and hate relationship that I have with boredom.  I hate to be bored but love doing nothing. 

The solution is not to end boredom because it will not work.  As soon as you find yourself something to do, you will get bored again.  The key is to break it.  When you find it boring to be a house-wife, the solution is not to go out hunting for a job.  The way to get out of it is to do other interesting thing with the kids, change the patterns a little bit.  Instead of cooking at home, why not treat yourselves out for today?  All of you can enjoy…all, except for boredom.

After all, when you are bored in your marriage, you will not pack up your bags and leave, right?

Daily conversations I have with boredom:

I am bored.

Then do something!

There’s nothing I can do, I am not good at doing anything…  This is what I’m good at… being bored.   Hmm… what’s on television? Ooh, a re-run! (slumping on the couch and tuning off my bright and wonderful brain)

I can’t possibly miss this now, can I?

Clinging to dear life

It has occurred to me that how I treat my children now is going to be the same as how they will treat me later when I’m old.  And this thought frightens me.  Because as of now, I rarely have time for them (Impossible you may say? I’m a stay-at-home mom after all.  Well let’s see…there is still laundry to be done, floor to be moped, meals to be cooked, and coffee with sitcom to be enjoyed… 24hours seem very short indeed!!).  But if I don’t make time for them now, how could I expect for them to make time for me when I’m old?

                There are so many cases where children as they grow up tend to put their ageing parents in an old folks home and forget about them.  No time to spend together.  No time to hear their stories.  No time to keep them company.  Because there is always something else to do: jobs to be done, money to be earned, chores to be finished, emails and/or blackberry messages to be replied, and television shows to be watched.  Because these are the things I’m doing now.  With so many gadgets and shows available, it is possible to be physically around the people we love, but not emotionally.  I hear my children talk, but I cannot hear what they are saying because either my focus is on the television, on the blackberry messenger, or at the task at hand.  I once heard a saying that goes like this, “Don’t worry that your children don’t listen to what you say; worry that they will follow what you do.”  If I keep on being ‘away’ from my children because of the chores and the socializing that I claim I need, I will end up in an old folks home.  

Both of my children are very independent, more mature than their age.  But emotionally?  My son has always been easy, he occupies himself and knows that when mommy is doing something better leave her alone.  My daughter, on the other hand, is the complete opposite.  Her emotional stability has gotten to the point of chronic-dependency.  She would pop her head into the bathroom, asking me why do I take so long to shower.

                What do I do?

                I have tried everything.  From telling her nicely that she needs to play with her ponies on her own, to screaming at her that she should not bother mommy.  But she would not cry.  Instead she would wait patiently then asked: “Are you done? Can you play with me now mommy?”  Lesson learned: persistence pay off.   

                In the back of my head, I blame myself for my daughter’s emotional dependency.  The reason why she is not emotionally independent like her brother can only be attributed to one thing: unlike her brother, she has had a nanny taking care of her for the first two years of her life.  I spent very little time with her when she was a baby.  And that is something that would haunt me for the rest of my life.  If I have taken care of her, none of this would happen.  She would turn out to be a happy, independent, beautiful little lady. 

                I have to make up for lost time… and if it would take me 20 years to make her emotionally independent, so be it.  

So now every time she asks me to do something with her, I think twice before saying no.  Because today will be gone too soon… and tomorrow may never come.

Om

Sometimes, that is all you need to do.

Just breathe.

If we could just focus only on our breathing, it’s a whole new world out there.  Starting from the time when you wake up in the morning.  Breathe in, breathe out.  We do it so often that we don’t pay attention to it anymore.  Air is the one element that we all take for granted.  We all know it’s there, we’ll die if there is a slightest lack of it, but we don’t really appreciate it.  Focus on your breathing, and you find yourself feeling lighter and happier. 

Inhale…. Exhale…..

Now you are ready to tackle the day.