Hello on being listeners. This is Marie Sambole, one of the audio producers here at Onbeing Studios.

And I'm here with another installment of a little experiment we've been doing.

It's called Living the Questions, where Christa responds to questions from you.

I love this question that we received from a parent, Dylan Stein, who says,

I've been trying to explain to my son how okay or even good being bored is,

how it's an opportunity to daydream and to invent.

I don't know if I've called myself a daydreamer. I was a thinker. I mean, I would sit around and

have thought impatience was something I suffered from. That was surprised you.

Dylan's question brought Christa back to how she experienced boredom as a child,

to how she sees boredom now as a parent, and what all of this is teaching her about the role of

boredom and mental downtime in all of our lives.

Well, you know, when my kids were little, we had a pediatrician who had a sign on her wall that said

every child should be allowed to get bored at least once a day.

And I don't think we were thinking about this culturally as seriously as we are now,

but it was the same idea. Because we, you know, it was kind of my generation of parenting where

we're already starting to over schedule children. And also I think like given to this cultural

energy we have, which is about being constantly entertained, right? And that if there's a void,

you fill it with consumption or something you're receiving or taking in. And it totally made sense

to me. And I mean, I used to say that to my kids. I mean, I still, you know, if they ever said,

I'm bored, I would say that is great. I'm so glad to hear that.

Maybe you're going to get creative right now. But actually, I think that gets at a

much deeper challenge that we have now because of our technologies. These technologies kind of

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