Shut Up and Pretend to Read!

I was sitting in an orthodontist office the other day. While there were countless magazines laying about, be they centered around sports, health, fashion, or cars, I decided to watch all the people around me instead. They all seemed so happy to be sitting there in their chairs, flipping through magazines while their children crawled all over them, ran around with the other kids, and somehow found some great amusement in the fabric of the chairs.

The kids were exciting, sure, but this is what caught my attention. Flipping through magazines! Who actually reads the magazines? Maybe if you really are interested in a topic you'll be reading the magazine, but how many people just sit there and flip through the magazines at 1 PPS (pages per second), passing the time while they wait? I know a lot of those people were, I can even say I've done it myself. But that's the whole silliness, the fabrication of it all.

Why do we do this? Are we afraid that if we don't look busy or 'adult' to other people, the people will think there's something wrong with us? How dare we not flip through magazines like every one else! Certainly the adult thing to do is to pop open Time magazine and read the latest scandal in politics. Apparently it's also 'adult' to be bored of your mind and pretend there's nothing wrong with what you're doing. What is that, you ask? Starving yourself of entertainment and fun.

No one in that waiting room was incredibly happy to be there, not because they had to get their teeth pulled at, drilled, or yanked for half an hour, but because the setting was just boring. Or was it? The children seemed to be having a riot.

So why are all the adults (and older teens) so bored by all this stuff they do? I'm not really just talking about waiting rooms here, I'm talking about school, life in general, people are pretty bored. Children get up and just play. Adults, and 'mature' teenagers are no longer allowed to do those silly things, yet they continue to complain about being bored.

This is not at all to say small children don't complain about boredom, it just seems that they can go from being incredibly bored, to pretending they're in the army, flying a spaceship, or finding something fun about poking furniture with a stick. Hey, even fighting with other kids is a way to keep entertained. It's almost as if adults force themselves to stay bored, even when opportunities to be far more entertained present themselves.

No, I'm not suggesting the men in the lobby have an all out brawl...

So why do adults no longer act like children? What in our society is forcing you to sit in that chair and read some stupid magazine they really don't care about? Why don't adults complain about being bored, when, in reality, a lot of them are just putting their efforts to the daily grind of work and only occasionally really getting out and enjoying life? Maybe on weekends they get out and do stuff, but why not in the waiting room of a boring office? I understand if someone does not have kids, the whole "do stuff with your kids" message here doesn't mean much, but it's something to think about.

If you're an adult, maybe even a teenager reading this, when was the last time you played tag? Got up and ran around with kids? When was the last time you rolled down a grass hill?

Can't remember?

Maybe you should put down the magazine and show your kids how to build legos. I know it's what I would do.