Ideas to Consider

The pattern I noted in last month’s column of referencing some recent book or publication and then drawing out its implications for our workplace profession will finally shatter. This month’s column is, instead, more like a small smorgasbord of ideas, each one managing to strike me as providing a sort of resonating truth, an insight that seems to merit our attention, perhaps even pondering. And I’d like to think they each have some relevance for officeinsight magazine readers, but you be the judge. Here goes.

This statement struck me: “Boredom is the Cadillac of feelings.” I can’t even precisely cite the source, and even ChatGPT wasn’t helpful with that. It must have been posted online in some platform I was perusing. As near as I can tell, the provocation of this clever luxury brand automobile reference is intended to disturb the more common default assumption that boredom is a negative thing, a state to be avoided or at least quickly escaped. Reframing boredom as a condition to be considered a luxury presents some interesting potential for us, especially in the current moment.

So, the common outlook might be that boredom is at best uncomfortable and nonproductive and might even prove harmful to overall mental health. However, there is an emerging outlook that suggests boredom might just be a useful and attractive fertile ground for stimulating creativity and innovation. At the very least, boredom is a signal that there might be things to change in your current circumstances. At the most, it might be a catalyst for hatching a new idea or at least incubating a new concept. In our times, boredom might actually be a preferable choice. The proliferation of stimulating technology in our lives can render boredom almost a challenge to achieve. Too often we might get right to the edge of boredom, nothing to do in the moment, and so then we pull out our phone to just check a few things, send a quick text, look at some news headlines, catch up on the sports scores. It’s just so easy, and yet we might be missing the chance to be bored for a moment, to just look around us at the people or the setting or the activity. Sit with the moment. Remember waiting for someone or something, perhaps getting a little bored? We just waited. Now, we often dive into one of our screens instead. What if we considered it a luxury to just feel some periodic boredom, to just dwell in the moment, to be right where we are, and to ponder external and internal realities? No devices for connecting and instead seizing the precious moments to be reflective. Boredom starts to feel a bit like a Cadillac huh?

A second idea I’ll share comes by way of our son, who just began graduate studies at the University of Chicago, a place fondly dubbed, “Where fun goes to die.” (Look it up, it’s actually a phrase closely associated with this hallowed institution, and likely a consolation to many tuition-paying parents.) During the welcome and orientation events recently, one of the Dean’s snapped my head back when he remarked, “The life of the mind is what we do here.” What a bold and wonderful assertion. At a time when higher education and even being an educated person is seemingly under assault and the target of misinformed, even grotesquely false accusations, is it conceivable to be opposed to activity intended to enrich the life of the mind? And yet, alas. Without delving into a solution to the current complex dilemmas of politics and public life, perhaps we might at least resolve to make our workplaces into settings that might, in some small measure, nurture and stimulate the life of the mind. Perhaps we could endeavor to make our work tasks and processes and activities and interactions into cognitively enriching experiences and environments, for ourselves and for other. And fun doesn’t have to die for the mind to grow. Our son is not miserable in Hyde Park.

Finally, allow me to introduce you, if you haven’t met before, to kintsugi. Kintsugi is a wondrously beautiful Japanese art form. It emerged from the process for repairing seemingly plain broken pottery, but in a way that transcends mere repairing.  The areas of breakage are mended, reconnected using precious materials such as gold, silver, or platinum. This repair process is intended to symbolize the idea that in embracing flaws and imperfections, brokenness, you can create an even stronger, more beautiful, and more valuable end product. It is a philosophy that understands breakage and repair as part of the natural lifespan of an object, making the object more beautiful for having been broken. What a powerful insight, captured in an object that embodies beauty itself, and with an array of applications to our human condition.

Too often, human brokenness is a reality we attempt to hide, or at least mask as much as possible. We cultivate too much shame over our mistakes, our failings, our brokenness. What if, instead, we viewed them as opportunities for repair in which the very marks of the repair would enhance our strength and beauty? Consider that the kintsugi artist must be creative and decisive in selecting the appropriate material for the repair, a deliberate choice of quality and strength and color to accent the original broken object, increasing its strength and enhancing its beauty. What if we were that deliberate with the care and healing of our own brokenness, seeking ways to both strengthen ourselves and showcase to others the beauty of our repaired selves. And even beyond our personal lives, what if our work paid this sort of homage to mistakes and repair and growth. What if organizational leadership and human resource strategies embraced the potential in mistakes and showcased the beauty of growth and recovery. The method we’re come to know as design thinking often references the importance of failure as a pathway to innovation. Perhaps kintsugi takes that mindset even further.

It can be tempting to become consumed with the challenging and ongoing tasks of addressing the issues in the workplace of today, from whatever vantage we sit. For a moment, though, consider boredom and the life of the mind and repairing brokenness and how these ideas emerge in each of our days, our lives.