20 (or more) things you can do when you are bored

It was early morning and NOM sat on a rock in front of his cardboardbox house. It wasn’t a particularly nice day. The clouds hung in the sky waiting to pour out some rain. It wasn’t warm but it wasn’t very cold either. Everything was clean in NOM’s cardboard box so there was nothing to do in there. NOM sat on the rock doing nothing in particular. He watched some butterflies chasing each other but looked away because he was jealous of their cheerfulness. Then he picked up a piece of dry grass and played with it, but cut himself so he quickly threw it away. There was nothing else to do so he just stared into the distance.  In short: NOM was extremely bored.

Then out of the blue NOM saw a big turtle crawl up the hill towards the carboard box house. It reached the top and started cheering. “YES I made it, I made it.” and did a little dance around a tree. NOM laughed. It was funny seeing a turtle dancing around a tree like that. NOM-ilarious.

the turtle that is never bored! 🙂

“Why are you laughing at me?” The turtle suddenly stopped dancing and looked at NOM.

NOM stopped laughing and sat up. “I…I’m sorry..I was just bored and suddenly there’s you dancing around a tree which is kind of funny…I mean for when you are bored like me.”

Now it was the turtle’s turn to laugh. “You….are bored?” It laughed so much,  it almost rolled back down the hill.

“Why is it so funny that I’m bored?”, NOM asked confused. He felt a little sad after the turtle’s sudden outburst of laughter.

Finally the turtle stopped laughing and looked at NOM. “You can never EVER get bored because…”

“Because?”

The turtle smiled and crawled towards the rock NOM was sitting on. “Because there are too many things you can do in life.”

“Really? But I can’t think of anything else to do. I’ve cleaned the cardboard box, eaten lunch and finished making my new pillow. I’ve…”

“That’s not a very good excuse. There is always something to do. Always. Here take this notebook and read through the list. It’ll give you some good inspiration.” The turtle handed NOM a small blue notebook that looked like it had been used a lot.

wouldn’t it be awesome to have a book like that? 🙂

“Make yourself comfortable on the grass, read the book and you’ll soon be inspired! While you are reading I willl practise my dance.”

“Thank you turtle!”, NOM said and opened the first page of the notebook. He began to read the list on the first page:

If you are bored, this is what you could do:

• 1. read a magazine about polaroid cameras
• 2. bake sesame seed cake
• 3. invent a new sesame seed recipe
• 4. decorate your cardboard box and put new photos on its walls

‘This is odd”, NOM thought after reading the first few suggestions. “It seems like this book was written for me. Only for me. But surely other people would have read it too.” Confused, but smiling NOM kept reading the list.

• 5. buy a new hat
• 6. draw a picture of yourself (or something else)
• 7. walk up the hill and take a picture of the sunset.
• 8. visit the lake nearby and go swimming (or learn swimming if you don’t know how to)
• 9. play with your pet- you dont’t have one? Then buy one!
• 10. make a vision board- https://kathialf.wordpress.com/2012/09/26/noms-vision-board/
• 11. buy a thing called ‘iphone’ and play games on it 🙂
• 12. read a book (make sure you pick an interesting one)
• 13. go into town and meet new people (or your friends)
• 14. watch a moooovie (if you don’t have a TV in your cardboard box, visit a cinema)
• 15. pick a country and find out everything about it on the internet (or in books)
• 16. write a story or a book (either is good)
• 17. try out a new sport (basketball, badminton, karate, volleyball, taekwondo, horse riding?)
• 18. play an instrument (this could be any; you can even make your own 🙂 )
• 19. listen to some good music and dance to it!
• 20. write a letter to someone you love ❤
• 21. write a list of your own things you can do when you are bored…. (if you are creative this list could fill up more than 10 books!)

NOM closed the book and jumped up from the rock. Suddenly he was super-excited.

“Thank you turtle! I know sooooo many things I’m going to do now! This is great!”

The turtle stopped its dance around the tree and smiled.

“I told you. There are too many things you can do in life.”

NOM grabbed the notebook and said: “Come on let’s go to the village and grab a sesame seed milkshake, then we can go for a walk up the hill and plan our invention and later at night we can make  our own board game in my cardboardbox!”

The turtle just grinned and followed NOM down the hill. It was going to be a great afternoon.

Do you ever get bored? If yes, I hope this list has given you some inspiration as to what you can do when you catch yourself lazily playing with some grass or sitting on the couch doing nothing in particular. 🙂 And besides, you can’t just be bored. Being bored is a decision. You decide wether you are bored or not. But that’s a whole other story…

Happy or sad? You choose.

One day; it was a Saturday morning, NOM sat in his little jewellery box (his so called home) and read the local newspaper. NOM never really read what was in it, he just liked to look at the photos. As he flipped through the pages he came across a wonderful picture. It was a picture of a sunset, that was taken from the top of a hill. NOM was so memerized by the photo because he had never seen such a beautiful sunset. When he read the article he found out that this photo was taken not very far from here, on a hill that overlooked a big valley. ‘Wow I want to see this place!’, said NOM. He was thrilled.

In the afternoon NOM packed everything for his trip to the hill including a little blue polaroid camera he had spent his entire money on. It was one of those cameras where the photo comes out right after you take it. Taking photos with a polaroid camera was one of NOM’s favourite hobbies. He also packed some food (sesame seeds and chocolate), a little hat and a map (so he knew where he was going).

At around 4pm NOM headed off. It was a wonderful afternoon. The sun was still up in the sky, but already quite low, the birds chirped their goodnight songs in the trees and the mild breeze ruffled up some leaves in a bush. NOM was really excited to see this sunset. ‘It is going to be NOMazing’ he thought and made his way towards the big hill.

NOM had just started walking up the big green hill when he felt something wet hit his fur. A raindrop. Then there was another one, and another one that hit him right in the eye. NOM shrieked and quickly put his hat on. Soon the sky was covered in black clouds and suddenly rain started pouring down onto the big green hill, the grass and the trees… and onto NOM.

NOM started climbing up the hill as fast as he could because he needed to see that sunset! In the distance he could still see patches of the sun peeking through the clouds. NOM held onto his polaroid camera tightly, trying to cover it from the rain that kept pouring down onto them non-stop. He had nearly reached the top now, he only had a few metres to go.

When NOM finally reached the top and climbed towards the bench that marked the top of the hill, it was dark. The rain clouds had taken over the whole sky and the sun was no-where to be seen. NOM’s head sank. He sat down on the bench and felt miserable. “Now I don’t get to see the sunset. My day is completely ruined.”, he said.

NOM sat on the bench for ages, not moving and just feeling sad. “I hate rain”, he said. “It ruins everything.”

“No it doesn’t”, a voice suddenly said from behind him. NOM shrieked and turned around a little so he could see the stranger’s face. It was a human with bright blue eyes and a big nose. He looked NOM straight in the eyes and said: “You decide how you feel about the rain. You decide if you feel happy or sad, right now or in any situation. Look at this wonderful sky, it’s grey but beautiful. And look, you can see everything from up here. The mountains, the trees, the village, everything. I think it’s amazing, because I decided to do so. I decided to feel happy about the rain right now…because what’s the point of feeling sad and miserable?” The human paused and then sat down on the bench next to NOM.

“Really?”, NOM said after a while. “So if I want to feel happy about this rain I can just decide to be happy and then I’m happy?”

“Yes of course”, said the human. “If you focus on all the good things like the colour of the sky or the great view, and you decide to feel happy about it, then you can.”

“All right”, NOM said after some thinking. He looked at the sky and the valley and suddenly he realised that this was beautiful.The shades and different colours of the sky, the valley and everything else around him.

“Wow. Now I see it! This is NOMazing. Maybe even more amazing than the sunet.”

“Yes, because you decided to. You decided to make this amazing.”

NOM smiled, got out his camera and took a photo of the valley and the sky. It turned out to be one of the best photos he had ever taken!

Life isn’t about waiting for the stom to pass; it’s about

learning how to dance in the rain.

Next time, before you say: “I feel unhappy”, you can think again and decide to feel happy! 🙂 The same goes with everything else in life. You can decide how you feel about a situation, don’t blame it on other people (or the rain).

This was NOM’s first adventure! Any feedback?