Boredom

Boredom: that’s the topic my sister gave me when I asked her to suggest a topic I could write on. Yes, you would see the irony of that if you were living my life. Having just finished my class 12 board exams and with friends who are preparing for upcoming entrance exams, the dominant and most consistent feature of my life , as I’m living it currently, happens to be boredom. Until I start college in July, assuming I get accepted, I have nothing to do. My life has no purpose whatsoever. And yes, I know what most people will say. And yes, I know that the right thing to do is to ‘use this time constructively’. My mum says I should use this time for self improvement, to apply home –made face and hair packs (made of substances that cling to your hair with astonishing tenacity and leave a lingering foul odor in their wake )and to take nourishing (re: long and tedious) beauty baths that I will apparently never again have the time for. My dad says I should accompany him to the office and learn about stocks and shares and banking and investment and other such words that an arts student like me, a lover of history and literature, (intentionally) knows nothing about, except that I find them dull and uninteresting. My elder sister , a working woman who gets no more than 1 day a week to get bored and do nothing ( and who secretly envies my current life characterized by boredom and doing nothing ) thinks I should give up my station/post as the couch potato and exert myself physically like hit the gym or dance to get in shape. I know that they say these things because they want to be good parents and mentors and they want to give me good advice but the truth is that if any one of them were given a month off , from their busy hectic work schedules , a month to just do anything (or nothing) , that’s exactly what they would do: nothing. I just finished studying for a month for the board examinations that lasted another whole month. I will soon start college which while I’m thrilled about, will be more hectic than school even. Only one person understood that maybe it’s not so wrong to do nothing and to want to do nothing. If having time to get bored and not do anything is something that all (working) adults seem to want so much that they’d perhaps be willing to sell a kidney for, then maybe I should utilize this time to do nothing ,to just be.