No More Boring Summers?- Maybe Not!
The opening page of our website leads with a bold assertion: “No More Boring Summers!” It’s accompanied by flashy images, a video of kids on the aerial park, and a heeling sailor hiking out over the side of his boat. Exciting stuff! We didn’t come up with this tag line, the page designer did. He creates a lot of camp websites, and after reviewing our programs and approach, and knowing the market, he felt like this was a good lead. We didn’t disagree, but I am not sure we would have arrived at this ourselves. We ran with it. I mean who wants to be bored, right? But as I think about it now, and learn more about some of the benefits of periods of boredom, I am ready to log into the settings and change it.
I don’t think for a minute that changing it to “Come to Camp Mishawaka and Be Bored!” would attract many prospective families. KIds want to stay busy, and parents want them to be occupied - learning, active, growing. But it seems to me that boredom has come to carry a stigma. If you’re bored, you’re not trying. If you’re bored you’re not engaged, maybe even lazy. And who needs to be bored when you can dig into your pocket to play wordle, watch an endless stream of “verticles,” or get a dopamine hit by finding an opinionator that agrees with your world view! We certainly have fewer and fewer opportunities to be bored, and I am not sure that’s always a good thing.
An article in the Harvard Business Review enumerates some of the benefits of boredom, and they are laudable, even desirable. They include:
*Stimulating original thinking
*Encouraging self-reflection and goal setting
*Improving emotional health and focus
*Increasing altruism and prosocial behavior
Who would have thought that being bored could offer such benefits? Does constantly being engaged then offer the inverse of the above?
I distinctly remember an episode from my youth when a friend of my mother’s accused me of “time weighing heavy on my hands.” I wasn’t sure what she meant at the time, but it has stuck with me. I was living at home after graduating from college, working odd jobs, and trying to figure out my next move. (And my parents were all too keen to help me!) She had stopped by our house late morning to drop something off, and as we stood there talking (me mostly just listening and waking up) I reached down and placed one hand on our dog’s shoulder and the other on his hind quarters and spun him around on the wood floor. She stopped mid-sentence and offered the observation. I guess I really was bored.
My parents were gracious enough to give me this time and space to figure it out. Thankfully, eventually, I did. I don’t think time weighs heavy on campers’ hands at Mishawaka. I don’t hear campers complain of being bored. There is always something to do. There is also space and time to think, to reflect, to “hang with friends.” Time to ideate, to dream, and then choose what to do next, even if that something doesn’t involve an activity that might make it on to the opening page of our website. If not constantly being engaged in some diversion is boredom (scrolling, tik-toking, or insta-ing), maybe we should change our banner.