Blogocentric Formulations

Day 13: When There's Nothing To Do

*Written as part of the "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" 

Day 13 Prompt: What do you do when there is nothing to do?

I'm assuming today's prompt did not intend for us to take "nothing to do" literally... otherwise it would be a very short blog prompt since there would actually be nothing we could do. So I'll assume the intention is that "nothing to do" be interpreted in the sense of, "I'm bored and there's nothing to do" or "I just finished everything on my to-do list; now what?"

While I will admit to being bored at times, I can't remember the last time I actually had nothing to do. And I think that's a result of three distinctly different aspects of my life.

First, I'm an adult. And the thing I've learned over the last decade-plus of being an adult is that there's always something else do to. Even when the bills are all paid and the house is all clean and the doctor appointments have all been made and the errands have all been run... there's always something else out there, if not immediately in front of you, then at least coming over the horizon. There are so many responsibilities to being an adult (even the ones without kids!) that I'm convinced there's no such thing as a moment where there's "nothing to do." There might be moments where we choose to put something off and deal with it later, but I'd be hard pressed to find a responsible adult who has more than a handful of moments where he or she can say, "There is absolutely nothing to be done today."

Second, I'm a media fiend. I love movies, TV, video games, music, books, etc. If I ever were to have one of those rare moments where I truly did not have any adult responsibilities that needed handling, I would probably occupy that free time with something I've been meaning to watch or read or experience. And since content is being generated at a far greater pace than I could ever consume, and since there's such a backlog of material that I have yet to see, I don't think I'll ever reach a point where I can truthfully say, "I have no adult responsibilities and there's nothing I've been meaning to watch, read, play, etc.

And third, I'm a writer. There's always a story idea rattling around in my head somewhere. So even if I'm not actually putting words to a page on a particular day, I'm thinking about characters and ideas and arranging my fictional worlds and solving story problems. So even if I managed to get to a point in my life where I've done everything on my to-do list and watched/read/played everything I've ever wanted to watch/read/play, my brain would be filling in the gaps with a mental to-do list of things I needed to accomplish in order to figure out a story, or start a story, or finish a story.

So I guess what I'm saying is that I refute the basic premise that there's ever a point where there's "nothing to do." For me, there's always something that I could be doing. That said, it doesn't stop me from whining about having nothing to do during those occasional fits of boredom. They just tend to not last very long for me because I quickly realize there is, in fact, more to do than I'll ever be able to accomplish, so sitting around and complaining is just taking precious time away from something else I should be doing!