A less boring life in 2022?

Q: How can I have a less boring life in 2022?

A: I hadn’t done much to get the life I really wanted. My life wasn’t bad, but still, I was bored. Really bored.

I’d thought a lot about personal satisfaction, entertainment, and excitement, but that was actually the problem: I’d thought about it. 

Then I woke up one Saturday with this demand in my head: Stop whining about your life. Do something about it. 

This really stopped me in my tracks. I’m a planner and a list-maker, and I’d mapped out plans before to improve my life, but with little follow-through. But something told me this time was going to be different. 

I woke up one Saturday with this demand in my head: Stop whining about your life.

I’d known that to start, I needed to get a bigger, more spiritual sense of life. So I’d been praying to understand more about divine Life, which is another name for God. Because of what I’d learned from my study of Christian Science, I trusted that divine Life couldn’t be dull or the same old thing day in, day out. Wouldn’t something as expansive and amazing as divine Life have to be dynamic, interesting, even fun? Wouldn’t Life have texture? But still, if that were true, why wasn’t I experiencing it?

Fortunately, that nudge to stop whining came with an idea: to actively look for one thing every day that made my heart sing. I reasoned that since Life is good and is everywhere, there must be good everywhere, and I could see and experience it. This is the simple spiritual basis that launched me on an exciting adventure. 

Because I’d often started spiritual projects, only to abandon them shortly after, it seemed smart to do something that would keep me on track. I committed on social media to writing about finding something that made my heart really sing, each day for a year. And this time I stuck with it. 

Looking for good wasn’t so easy the first day. I called friends to do one thing, then another, and another. I upped the fun factor with every invite. No one was interested or available. So, I found something I really wanted to do and did it alone. At first it seemed sad. 

But I knew I had a choice. A choice to look for God’s goodness in a way that I never had before. So I set out on my solo adventure. And it showed me the promise of my new discipline. Good really is always here. We can see it when we look for it from a spiritual perspective­—when we let divine Life show us more about our lives, instead of just looking at things from our own limited vantage point.

Some days were easier than others. And I had some days that were boring, and even tough, that year. But I never had to go to bed without experiencing something that really did make my heart burst with happiness. And every time I did, I felt closer to God. 

As time went on, I found that it became easier to identify real good in my life. I felt happier in general, and the happiness was more consistent. I thought about a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy describing what had seemed like a distant goal before: “Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul” (p. 60).

I was looking to the source—Soul, God—to learn about the beautiful, fully-textured Life that includes all of us.

I was looking to the source—Soul, God—to learn about the beautiful, fully textured Life that includes all of us. And now that I expected to not only see good but experience it firsthand, I was never let down. Sometimes I became more aware of the blessings of a healing. Other times, the good was as simple as a spectacular view that made me see more clearly that beauty really is a part of Life.

Toward the end of the year, I found I didn’t even have time to write the blog because I was too busy doing things. And I’d discovered that every day is an adventure and that I was enjoying almost all of it. I didn’t even have to look for good to find it anymore; it was just part of who I am, because I fell in love with Life.

Maybe loving life seems difficult or even impossible right now. The pandemic has been tough on a lot of us. Not being able to hang out with friends can be dull and lonely, even with technology. But as I found, there really is a way to break out of that mind-set and experience the goodness of Life now. Your way may not be my way, but God has something tailor-made for you. I’m pretty sure it’ll start with a spiritual basis that points you in the direction of tangible, ever-present goodness, and develop from there. 

Even if it doesn’t feel like you’re connected to that wonderful Life, you are. It’s your one and only Life! And you can experience it—right now.