Yesterday, I finished Malcolm Gladwell’s Talking to Strangers when the plane was about to land.

There’s nothing else I could do at this point (electronics/digital devices aren’t allowed), so I decided to just stare blankly at the wall in front of me.

I’m starting to get bored after a few moments. Normally I would reach for the phone (aren’t we all?), but the thought of being apprehended by the flight attendant didn’t look appealing, so I decided to stay in that bored state and continue staring at the wall.

Outside, the plane was fast descending to the runway, but from where I was sitting, time seemed to stand still.

Then surprisingly, some nice ideas came to mind.

Sitting around doing nothing is not considered unproductive, says Chris Bailey. It is actually a much needed break from focused thinking where you allow your mind to wander (berangan?). In his book Hyperfocus, he calls this scatterfocus. It is this mind-wondering state that leads our thoughts to interesting places. This allows our brain, –otherwise busy with tasks at hand—to relax. It can bring us solutions for some old problems, cool new ideas for some challenging client requests, and above all else: helps put things in better perspectives.

This time, it gave me some ideas on what to write about. I needed to jot them down somewhere, but realised that my analog notebook is tucked away in the overhead compartment.

Well, I guess I’ll just have to live with the blank wall.

Maybe all of us could benefit from being bored once in a while. Refrain from picking up the phone to check messages or the social media whenever you feel bored. Don’t. Let this this run for a day or two and see how much the world misses you.

Or didn’t.

P.s; being bored is not the same as being boring. One is sinful, the other’s not. 😜