Tag Archives: beating boredom

August 10, 2026 · 12:56 am

The Gift – “No One Cares” – Part 5

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Let’s take stock of where we are on addressing the fact that you are bored, tired, frustrated, unhappy and in a big rut.

In Part 1 – Mindset – I asked you to get outside and FOCUS on the beauty around you in the little, everyday things you may have been ignoring for a long time now. I hope that you have taken the time to do this, were pleasantly surprised at all you’ve been missing, and have made plans to do more.

In Part 2 – I suggested that you to take a down-to-the-ground honest inventory of what makes you happy, what things you enjoyed doing in the past, what things you’ve dreamed of doing – writing them down so that it’s a running list of who you are now.

In Part 3 – I introduced the practice of Gratitude – spending just 5 minutes a day – thinking of ONE THING for which you are truly grateful. Just sitting quietly and concentrating on that thing – what I’m hoping is that in time you will be filled with inner peace, joy, with happiness boiling up from within and spilling out all over the floor.

In Part 4 – I told you that your mindset guides every part of your life. If you think something will happen – or it won’t – you’re right. In fact you MAKE it happen or not.

Today I’m going to share my personal experience to illustrate that it is possible to reshape your life so that you’re happy to greet each day – happy whether you ‘accomplish’ anything or not – just to BE.

A little over a year ago, my husband and I moved to Thailand to retire and live near our grown son. We were going to work on getting our health back, start new, healthier lives, see all the sights in a beautiful new country… 2 weeks later he had a stroke. One month in the hospital, now in a nursing home – lives forever changed.

So – I was sitting in my little condo – living alone for the first time EVER. Even though I live in the same building as our son, I don’t want to impose on his time. I don’t speak the language, though I’m learning some Thai phrases slowly. I am not financially independent here. I need help with everything.

PITY PARTY? – NOOOOO! I remembered what my mother-in-law said. “I’M GOING TO LOVE IT!” I thought about what I would do now that our plans had gone up in smoke. I thought long and hard about what I wanted my life here to look like. What did I miss the most? What could I add here that would make me smile?

I decided that what I missed most was trying to create some type of art. I decided to try to teach myself to draw and paint the sketches. I wouldn’t need a lot of expensive supplies. I wouldn’t have to show anyone the sketches. It wouldn’t matter if I were a total failure – I would enjoy TRYING to get what I was seeing down on paper and then have the fun of painting it.

I have done the inventory. I am not the person I was back in the States I can’t be. The situation is too different. I’m learning to adapt and change and try to fit in here. I’m making some friends slowly. I’m trying to get healthier.

I still spend most of my day by myself, but I am concentrating on cramming as much joy as I can into each day as possible. I’m working one jigsaw puzzle after another, leaving the puzzle table in the middle of the room to wait for me to stop and give it some time. I used to play the guitar and sing. I gave the guitar to my son a hundred years or so ago. My son bought me a used guitar and I’m teaching myself to play again. I sound like a very sick frog, but no one is here to judge. I spend as much time on my computer as I want, learning new things, finding new things to share on the blog I write daily.

My mindset is to reshape my life here to take the best care I can of my husband in the nursing home, then spend the rest of the time doing things that make me happy. I’m busier than I have ever been, even while I was raising a child, working full time, taking care of husband, house, pets, yard, etc. And I have never been happier.

The mindset of handling a crisis and starting a completely new life and the mindset of boredom are alike in that YOU are the one who can reshape your life to have it provide what you need. Your happiness and motivation comes from within YOU. You do it with resolve, understanding where you’re starting and realizing that you need to make the changes – one step at a time – that will get you out of the rut.

I hope that something I have said has been helpful. I hope that you realize that you are not alone in having bad habits and damaging mindsets for whatever reason. I hope you now are beginning to understand that this is a lifelong process of self-assessment, and figuring out things you need to do to make your life better for you.

The gift is that no one cares. No one can stand in your way of changing whatever you want in your life. Please start today if you haven’t already. Please feel free to write if you have questions or comments.

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August 4, 2026 · 9:23 pm

The Gift – “No One Cares” – Part 2

4fuxake – @blueheartedly1.bsky.social

The above fits perfectly with my suggestion in Part 1 that you take a mindful walk NOTICING the world around you.

Today’s Suggestion: Take an Honest Inventory – Re-Introducing Yourself to YOU!

This probably sounds weird, but in the fast paced, hectic world we live in, full of endless demands on our time and talent, we measure our worth by how we’re doing at work, how many things we could check off the to-do list for the day, we lose ourselves. We know we’re in there ‘somewhere,’ but we have been buried so long that it’s like trying to find the puppy hiding in a humongous pile of autumn leaves.

So I’m suggesting that you get paper and pencil or the notes section on your phone, sit down where you can be quiet for a while – maybe enjoying some coffee or tea in front of a window – calm down, and really think about who you are.

  • Are you feeling lost because you are no longer working – losing your sense of identity in the process? Were your friends at work also the social part of your life? Do you feel disenfranchised because they have all gone to be with family, or seem to have their act together while you feel at sea, dissatisfied, rudderless?
  • What makes you smile now? I’m serious! Make a list of things in life that bring a smile to your face, make you laugh, lift your spirits. Write them down. Leave some space because other things may occur to you as you do other parts of this.
  • What things did you enjoy when you were a child? Riding your bicycle? Spending time with your best friend? Be specific. Once you start remembering, the things will occur to you faster and faster, probably bringing back some great memories.
  • Was there a class you enjoyed at school? Why did you like it? Again, be as specific as you can.
  • What things have you put aside or given up, due to your responsibilities of being an adult? Dreams?
  • How did you feel when you tried something new?

The answers to these things are integral to who you are. We are our memories, good and bad, and we carry these with us wherever we go for as long as we live. They are only part of who we are now, though – the background in the mural we’re painting.

If you’re having difficulty doing this inventory – turn it on its head and ask yourself what you did NOT like as a child, as an adult, in school, etc. Sometimes this will get the flow going. It may take a while to do this, but it is super important. Think of it as your diary – the old style with actual pages and a tiny lock and key – the key you wore around your neck on a string or chain to keep your thoughts private. This is for YOU. No one else CARES what you list, giving you total freedom to be real. No filters. No judgment.

I have gone through this myself, which is one of the reasons I’m writing this series. Through this reintroduction, I realized that in deciding to retire and move to Thailand with my husband to live close to our son, I was not only leaving behind a 40-year accumulation of things I treasured, I was leaving my IDENTITY behind. I was leaving all my art tools and supplies, my finished pieces, the ‘critters’ my husband and I had created from scrap metal and placed around the yard, the decorations for our mailbox that we cut out of sheet metal and I painted, my 14 brick planters of flowers, my chest high square foot garden of veggies, my work listed on Etsy, my beloved pets, my friends…

And THEN – here in Thailand – 2 weeks after the move – my husband had his stroke, leaving him bed-ridden and mentally incapacitated in a nursing home. Suddenly I was living alone for the first time in my life, even though my condo is in the same building as our son’s condo, and life as we had planned it had gone up in smoke, in a strange country where I didn’t speak the language, didn’t know anyone, had no funds of my own that were easy to get to, little independence, physically impaired from a surgery that saved my life in the states, but left me needing hearing aides and needing to figure out a way to solve my balance problem and build back my strength.

I did this inventory. I spent a long time on it, starting with a pencil and paper, and then when the erasures were wearing the paper out, I switched to using the note thing on my phone, something I had never even been aware of before, and just kept working on it every day when I could make the time. It was the best time I have ever spent.

Please try this. It won’t be easy. It will force you to really look at yourself from the inside out. But remember the gift – no one cares what you write down. You have complete freedom to see yourself as no one else ever will. Completely honest, soul bared. Once you do that, you can start to decide what you want to do next about your boredom, shaping your life to enjoy and cherish every minute.

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