Recently a friend said that if she had to talk about her life it would be a very boring talk, because nothing exciting had ever happened to her. She is not the only one that feels like that about her own life. The truth is that there is no such thing as a boring life or an exciting life. We measure boredom or excitement by what is either common to us or very different. Allow me to explain: someone who lived all her/his life in Paris won’t think that living there is that exciting. For her/him Paris is just where home is and probably thought of as boring. For this individual, living in a white fenced little house in Middle America may be as exciting as Paris would be for you or me.
I always thought I had the most boring life imaginable even though I had lived in several different places in Africa, had lived through a couple bad earthquakes, witnessed an “end-of-the-world” event (long story, maybe for another time), lived through a political coup, and had talked to Ironside’s Raymond Burr at an airport on an island in the middle of the Atlantic (mind you, at that time I had no idea who he was) by the time I was only 10. I didn’t realize that my life was indeed exciting if viewed by somebody else’s eyes until I had a casual conversation with an old schoolmate (I will call her “She”) on a train heading to college. It kind of went like this:
She: I am so excited. I am going out of town this weekend with a couple friends. Can’t wait.
Me (jealous she was going to have such an exciting weekend): I am just going to spend it with my parents and my sister.
She: We are going to spend the weekend in their house by the beach. It’s about 100 miles from here.
Me: That’s so exciting.
She (probably just trying to be nice): So, where are your parents and sister?
Me: In Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of Congo for those of you who are geographically challenged). I go there every other weekend.
She (shock in her face): Kinshasa?? The one in Africa? You are going there over the weekend?
Me: Yes, I go there a lot. No big deal.
She: No big deal???? Hell, here I am excited that I am going to get in a car and drive a little over an hour to spend the weekend with a couple friends and you are going to get on a plane, fly for 7 hours and spend the weekend in Africa!!!
Moral of the story? The grass is always greener on the other side. Or at least, it looks like it is. So, instead of spending your life thinking your life is boring, take a hard look at it and appreciate it, enjoy it, relish in all the little and not so little experiences it affords you and learn from them. That’s what excitement really is. We all have stories to tell, life experiences to share. Like the wise Forest Gump is famous for saying, “life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you gonna get”. So enjoy it to the fullest!
Author Natalina Reis 