When Did an Ordinary Life Become Something We Needed to Fix?
When Did an Ordinary Life Become Something We Needed to Fix?
I miss boring.
I miss waiting for a bus without reaching for my phone.
I miss eating dinner without somebody photographing it from three different angles first.
I miss watching television without simultaneously scrolling through another screen, answering a message and Googling an actor because I’m convinced he was in EastEnders in 2004.
I miss when going for a walk was simply going for a walk.
Now apparently it has to be 10,000 steps.
Sleep has a score.
Water has a target.
Food has macros.
Exercise has rings that need closing.
Careers need five-year plans.
Hobbies become side hustles.
Holidays become content.
And heaven forbid you make a Victoria sponge because you fancied some cake. Give it a fortnight and somebody will tell you to start a TikTok account and monetise it.
We’ve somehow managed to turn being alive into a performance review.
And I’m beginning to wonder if we’re all absolutely knackered.
Technology was supposed to give us more time.
Instead, we’ve filled every second it saved.
There used to be a strange little pocket of life called waiting.
You waited for the train.
You waited at the doctor’s.
You waited for your friend who said she’d be there at seven and clearly hadn’t even left the house yet.
And while you waited, you did absolutely nothing.
Imagine that.
You stared out of a window.
You people watched.
You daydreamed.
Occasionally, if things got really desperate, you spoke to a stranger.
Now the second we’re left alone with our thoughts, our hand reaches automatically for a phone.
And within thirty seconds that phone has informed us that everyone else is apparently doing life better.
Someone has a nicer house.
Someone has a better body.
Someone has been promoted.
Someone is in the Maldives.
Someone has found the love of their life.
And someone has woken at 5am, meditated, journalled, drunk something violently green, run 10K and launched a business before I’ve even found my glasses.
Even relaxation has become competitive.
We don’t read a book anymore.
We have a reading goal.
We don’t take a walk.
We track it.
We don’t go to sleep.
We wake up and ask a watch to tell us whether we were any good at it.
And perhaps strangest of all, we don’t just experience our lives anymore.
We document them.
The meal.
The concert.
The sunset.
The birthday.
The holiday.
Sometimes I wonder whether we’re actually enjoying the moment or collecting evidence that we enjoyed it.
There is nothing inherently wrong with any of this.
I love technology.
I love being connected.
I love having the answer to almost any question sitting in my hand.
But perhaps convenience came with a price nobody mentioned.
We lost boredom.
And boredom, it turns out, was doing something rather important.
It gave our minds somewhere to wander.
Think about where your best ideas arrive.
They’re rarely when you’re desperately trying to have a brilliant idea.
They’re in the shower.
Walking the dog.
Looking through a train window.
Pottering around the house.
Lying on the sofa on a Sunday afternoon with absolutely nowhere to be.
Those empty spaces weren’t wasted time.
They were life.
Yet now we seem determined to fill every one of them.
Perhaps that’s why so many of us feel permanently behind, as though we’re running late for a destination we can’t actually name.
There is always another notification.
Another goal.
Another thing we’re supposed to improve.
Another version of ourselves waiting to be unlocked.
More successful.
More productive.
More attractive.
More mindful.
More organised.
More hydrated.
God, we’re hydrated.
But are we content?
Because maybe the ultimate luxury in 2026 isn’t a designer handbag, a five-star holiday or the latest piece of technology.
Maybe it’s having nowhere to be.
Nobody expecting an immediate reply.
Nothing to achieve.
A cup of something warm.
The television on.
Your phone abandoned somewhere out of reach.
A Sunday afternoon stretching ahead with absolutely nothing interesting to report.
No announcement.
No transformation.
No productivity.
No life update.
Nothing Instagrammable whatsoever.
Just an ordinary, gloriously uneventful life.
I think I miss boring.
And perhaps boring wasn’t so boring after all.
REFLECTION TOPICS
Modern life
Boredom
Digital overwhelm
Slow living
Life perspective
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