When it comes to fighting boredom, I have two strong rules. The first is to do away with sharp objects while the second rule is to swing matchboxes or lighter away from my vicinity. These rules might sound hilarious, but they have saved my life countless times. Boredom, if not well managed, can become disastrous. Some people might probably wonder how boredom will cause danger. To know the answer to this, you would need to experience it fully but I’ll share my experience in this post.
I remember that day like it happened yesterday. I was the only one at home and to make matters worse the electricity company decided to play god for the whole day. After waiting for the electricity to come up for hours, I gave up and started parading the compound. I was all alone in a house with multiple rooms. No cell phone. No movies to kill boredom. Nothing at all. Things would have been better if I had a book to read, but there were none available. So, it was just me, myself and I. Since I was all alone in the house, I talked to myself loudly, without caring whether people would hear me.
After I got tired of talking to myself, I decided to explore the rooms. I was hoping that I would at least be able to find new books. It wasn't like there were no books at all in the entire house but the ones available were self help books and I did not want them at the time. All of a sudden, my eyes met it: THE SCISSORS! I wish my future self would have traveled back in time and warned me about the problem it would cause. A pair of scissors lying there just like that? Sounded fishy!!
I picked up the scissors and the next thing I picked was a cardboard-like book. So, I started cutting out shapes and figures. I cut out squares, triangles, circles and many more. Cutting shapes out of paper helped me battle boredom for about an hour; but after that, I got tired. It was then an idea struck; I decided to trim my beards. Honestly, I don’t know where that thought came from because I had never handled a clipper ever in my life. But there I was, with scissors in my hand, ready to pull off something magical.
I started by trimming my beard. I enjoyed the sound the scissors made as they came into contact with my beard. In the next few minutes, I would come to regret that decision. All of a sudden, I put the scissors in too deep and it shaved off about 40 percent of my beard in one swing. It wasn't funny. It felt like something had chopped off my beard. I tried to correct it, but I kept making everything worse. After one try after another, I ended up shaving off all my beard. I had to go to the barber to fix it.
Boredom can be dangerous. I have heard stories of people who mistakenly set their house of fire because they were bored. To avoid scenarios like this I came up with two rules for myself.
Thanks for reading.
Image used is mine.
