Being a Boring Person

It is New Year again!

With all the red-and-white decorations and Mariah Carey singing All I Want for Christmas Is You everywhere, it’s hard not to notice that another year is almost here. The end of December always feels like a mix of anxiety and hope. As the year wraps up, there is less and less time to catch up on everything – whether it is tomorrow’s statistics final or the goal to lose ten pounds. That is also the point of the year that we start to look back and reflect on what has happened, and sincerely, hope things will get better for the next year. Therefore, here comes the New Year’s resolution. I cannot tell how it works for others, but I am never quite sure that putting the same things over and over again, only to fail again by December, is simply a form of self-punishment. Not surprisingly, I still make New Year’s resolutions – and then seem to flush them down the toilet with the New Year’s hangover. I spend the next eleven months living a life that has nothing to do with them, until one night in late December, when I suddenly become curious about whatever wise words I gave myself twelve months ago.

The first things I notice are that I listed so many different time-consuming … I decided to read ten books, knit at least two scarves for my friends, cook more instead of ordering takeout, and spend time in therapy rather than venting to AI. I can say with complete confidence that I haven’t accomplished a single one. Whether it’s the book I only read halfway through or the scarf I knitted just three centimeters of – in fact, I’m typing this line while eating McDonald’s. Then it naturally comes to inquire: what did I do instead? I check around in my head, and the only possible reason I can think of is my phone.

Time flies

My new resolution reminds me that I spend most of my free time on the most random things online. I could watch a cute cat than read a page for a whole day; collect dozens of biscuit recipes without even realising it; and scroll through TikTok for no reason before falling asleep. Rather than blaming myself, as I usually do, this time I do feel that the digital world also needs to take some responsibility for this.

My theory is that the internet allows me to be a boring person. Being boring used to be something to resist. When we ask, “What do you do to kill time?”, idleness is framed as an enemy that must constantly be filled. However, it seems to be an old-fashioned phrase now. With the existence of the internet, we don’t have to figure out what to do to kill time – we can simply open TikTok and problem solved. In a sense, trying to figure out what to do becomes more of a consuming action. Whether reading a book, continuing to crochet, or starting to cook requires entering a state of slowness, continuity, and commitment. And consequently, this state comes alongside restlessness, self-doubt, and the temptation to give up. As the digital world offers an easy escape for constant stimulation without demanding commitment, progress without effort, and presence without patience, the experience of waiting has become increasingly unbearable in the modern world. We once wrote Waiting for Godot; now, even waiting through the advertisements before a YouTube recording of Waiting for Godotbegins feels like a form of torture. Perhaps this is why being boring no longer feels like something to resist, as boredom is no longer an empty space to endure, but a condition carefully managed and continuously interrupted.

Or perhaps being boring, is also a form of security. Committing to going to the gym, learning guitar, or spending quality time with family, all feel like additional layers of responsibility that add to life itself. Making a commitment exposes us to the anxiety of uncertainty, judgment, and failure. Then not to make any seems to be the best solution. Therefore, being boring is also being safe. In this situation, the internet offered us a companion that never disappoints and rarely asks for return. The only thing it asks is time. Throughout history, a recurring theme has been regret over the irretrievable past and fear of an uncertain future. The present, as the only time we are left, is where forced to negotiate uncertainty. Faced with this discomfort, the internet offers an immediate escape. As it does not ask us to remember or to anticipate, the internet keeps us suspended in a continuous present. Put it in another way, the internet allows us to live in an isolated present, where time spent rarely feels lost in the moment but feels endlessly replaceable. Here, being boring feels safe precisely because it asks nothing of us – and also leaves little behind.

Make a wish

Perhaps the question is not whether I want to be less boring, but what I am actually longing for. Do I miss reading books, or do I miss myself who stays in the irretrievable past? We always wishfully want our lives to be meaningful, and that is the reason why I like the new year. When the existence of the future becomes sufficiently undeniable, it compels you to confront and envision it. Just like the new year resolution itself, writing down a couple of commitments only at this time of the year feels more like a hope instead of a requirement. In a life often organised around boredom, this brief willingness to imagine change feels worthwhile in itself. Even if nothing comes of it, the act of writing is already a way of acknowledging that time moves forward – and that I might, too.