There was a time when I thought an interesting life had to look and sound interesting to strangers. You needed stories. Adventures. A calendar full of new restaurants, new places and exciting new people. I’m beginning to suspect the opposite may be true. The people who seem to have life all figured out often live remarkably boring lives. But it turns out that being boring might be life’s greatest cheat code. They go to bed at a reasonable hour and get up at roughly the same time every morning. They eat simple food, exercise, take long walks in nature and spend time in quiet contemplation. They aren’t trying to play to strangers. They’ve found a few things they like and, remarkably, they keep doing them. For example, I’ve played golf since Scottie Scheffler was a boy. But people keep telling me I should try pickleball. I don’t wanna try pickleball, I can barely play golf.
The boring life makes horrifically boring social media posts. Nobody wants to see a selfie of you in bed at 10:06 on a Tuesday night. Nobody ever went viral over a bowl of steel-cut oatmeal with sliced bananas and a cup of tea for breakfast. See the problem here is that social media didn’t just give us a cool way to keep up with friends and family. It turned us into spectators of our own lives. Most people aren’t willing to admit that they care about how their lives look to strangers. But they do. And that’s why they find themselves waiting in line at the edgy new Indian-Italian fusion restaurant or trying pickleball.
But do we really need an audience for us to feel like our lives matter? Are we that shallow? Ask yourself, “would I still want to do this if nobody ever knew I did it?” Where I live there is always another “hot” new restaurant to try. But part of wisdom is learning that you aren’t Anthony Bourdain. Most restaurants fail in fifteen minutes. So, for me, I’m not going to that new Indian-Italian fusion joint until it’s been “hot” for about four years. I don’t have an adventurous palate. I’d rather go someplace I like that isn’t struggling to make payroll.
The advertising world is in the business of selling “excitement” to us. It seems every drug ad for Jardiance or Skyrizi has a guy playing the double bass in a jazz quartet. He just recovered from pneumococcal pneumonia and is now living his best life. It’s this kind of marketing that makes us embarrassed by ordinary life. Suddenly my quiet weekend seems wasted. I didn’t have any jazz quartet gigs. I didn’t go anywhere memorable yesterday unless you think the plumbing section at The Home Depot is interesting. Nobody wants to hear that you successfully replaced the ball flapper in your toilet. I might start a social media page consisting of me doing really boring things like fixing a toilet.
Maybe it’s all those pharma ads that got us worried that we might be missing something. But what, exactly, are we missing? Do you really want to drag a double bass into the basement of a dive bar on a Tuesday night at 9 p.m.? Hard pass. At some point having more choices ought to make us more discriminating. Hundreds of options gives us hundreds of opportunities to say no.
The intelligent response is stinginess over what really deserves our attention. Yes, Steely Dan is playing on Tuesday night at the Fox Theater. But, for crissakes, they’re 75 years old. Even they don’t wanna be at the Fox Theater after 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. There’s a point where freedom is defined by knowing you could go to see Steely Dan and deciding not to. Nobody over age 18 should be wearing a concert t-shirt unless you’re in one of those Geico ads trying desperately not to be your parents.
None of this means you should move into a yurt and only eat fermented foods. Every life needs a little excitement. There are times when life should be loud, difficult, crowded and wonderfully unpredictable. The question is whether excitement is something we enjoy or something we require in order to feel alive. So maybe I’m really boring after all. I eat at restaurants where the menu hasn’t changed since the Carter administration. If I go, I’m in the car before Steely Dan starts the encore. I’m in bed before they finish. But you feel free to stay for the encore. No judgement here.
I’m the guy next to you at the Waffle House pecking on his keyboard. I want to hear from you. You can reach me anytime at [email protected]. I promise that you’ll hear back from me cause, you know, I’m a real person and all.
