I’m weary. Every day I sit at the same desk and look out the same window at the same view. Even when I have 100 things to do, I rebel against them because I am so unconcerned. When I get bored with being bored, I go to the bathroom to rearrange objects that don’t need rearranging. I look in the mirror for a few seconds and think, “I am so bored.”

 Nothing in my immediate reach can kill the stuffy boredom. I know I’ll regret wasting all this free time later as I hustle to make deadlines and appointments. But that’s just the way I am sometimes. I have a full schedule and many to-do lists, but nothing seems to matter. I just can’t focus, or I don’t want to focus.

 We live our lives as college students with full plates most of the time. We set ourselves up with more to tackle than we can handle. But then, the brain reaches a restless overload and needs to abandon everything for a day or weekend. It always catches up to us later, but that’s life in 2021.

Other times, we’re on it. We get our projects and papers done days before the due date. We are at work early. We eat three meals a day. But then, there are those hours of pure disinterest in all the ‘have to-dos.’

 Are we nothing more than machines producing hundreds of hours of intense mental labor? Are we procrastinators? If we are, does that make us bad? As creatures of habit, maybe we form the wrong habits. We have a perpetual habit of feeling self-doubt or being overly busy, worked and stressed, only to complain about it with a slight sense of heightened self-worth and satisfaction.

 Could it be that perpetual boredom only indicates a lack of creativity or the need for stimulation through entertainment? Or is it the inner disinterest for the deeper self?

 More realistically, I feel that this boredom is the result of the monotonous routine of everyday life that has been played on repeat for longer than many of us expected.

 We need to find ways in which we can have a better sense of control over our waking lives — that is, the time we spend working on assignments and doing daily necessary tasks. Instead of filling days and weeks with demanding to-do lists, we must try to hollow out just an hour of activities that we enjoy. When we get too invested in what we have to do, we forget to do the things we want to do, even if it’s only for a few minutes.

 I have come to the realization that perhaps if we give ourselves a little more freedom in our day-to-day tasks, we might not waste weekends and late nights revolting against our ‘have to-dos’ and, more importantly, revolting against ourselves.