This is why your life is boring

I’m on my way back home with my 5-year old, who keeps asking me if she can run. 

“How far this time, dad?”

“To the corner and then back here.”

Off she goes. 

“Can I run more, dad?”

“Yes, Olivia.”

“How far?” 

“See where that big tree is? Stop there.”

“Ok!”

After a while, I ask her, 

“You really like to run, right?”

“Yes. And it’s important, because if  I run a lot, then I’ll spend more time not being dead.”

Wait, what? 

“Oh, do you mean that running is good for you, so you’ll… live for longer?”

“Yes! I didn’t know how to say it good.”

She laughs and runs off again. 

But now I’m thinking over what she said, and it’s odd. It makes me think of time being infinite, and how little we spend on this existence. It’s a strangely profound way of thinking about life. 

Maybe she really just got her words confused, but… what if she didn’t? 

That would not have been the first time Olivia said something that felt off for a kid her age. 

*

When some kids at her school were stealing trading cards and pocket change, Olivia said “I’m ok with our TV and our computer, so I don’t need to steal anything.” 

She once asked me to sit away from the sun because she is “a friend of the shadow.” 

The first time she had an English breakfast, she said she really liked “faked beans.”

Then a few weeks ago, she was busy with some colouring books, and blurted out, 

“I have the joy of life.”

“Ok… why do you say that?”

“Because I love colouring, and they leave colouring stuff in my house.”

“Who’s ‘they’, monster?”

“The peoples.”

“Got it.” 

I guess I can explain most of that through her misspeaking or getting her ideas a bit jumbled up, but sometimes… that’s harder to do. 

Like when I told her she was getting too big to be picked up, and asked her if she’d like to stay very small. She said, 

“Yes, I’d like that, because when I was small my sister liked me and didn’t hit me.”

Ouch. 

I know she was exaggerating, but… 

I can’t help wondering: 

When she says something wise beyond her years, is it just insightful by accident, a small kid mixing up words… 

Or am I just hoping that’s the case? 

*

She runs back with a huge smile on her face, looks up to me and asks, 

“How far now, dad?”

Why (you think) your life is boring 

When you’re spending the day in company (with a friend, partner, relative, anyone you’re comfortable with), you tell them things all the time. 

Anything weird you see (“Look at what that guy is wearing”), anything funny (“They really messed up my name in this coffee cup!”), you talk about how you feel (warm, cold, hungry, sleepy, etc.) and you even share your thoughts and memories (“I just remembered a time when…”). 

When you have a willing audience, there are no shortage of things you think are worth sharing. But here’s the thing: if you don’t share them pretty much straightaway, they're forgotten as if they never happened. You get home, someone asks about your day, you shrug and say, “It was fine.” Sometimes we do the same thing for whole months )or years!) of our lives:

“What have you been up to?”

“Nothing, really, just normal life…”

And that’s why so many people think they “have no stories” – or worse, that their lives are boring, because “nothing happens.” 

But it doesn’t have to be 

The solution is simple: write things down as they happen. Write down anything

• That makes you laugh

• That makes you mad

• That makes you happy or sad 

• Anything that, if you were not alone, you’d want to share

All those little thoughts, observations and feelings add up to an endless trove of stories you can one day craft and tell. 

And even if you don’t ever want to do that, that’s cool too: just being able to look back on all of it will make you realise that your life is not boring. 

In fact, no life is boring. 

If you think it is… 

You’re just not paying enough attention 🤘

-Francisco 

I need your help!!

Brian Miller and I are 2025 finalists for the Anthem Awards, in the category of Awareness Campaigns for Humanitarian Action for our work on a TEDx 🎉

We’ve been recognised alongside Selena Gomez and Rare Beauty; Spotify; Google; MTV Entertainment Studios; The Daily Show; and Clinton Global Initiative among 2,000+ global submissions.

🔹 What are The Anthem Awards?

They’re the social impact awards presented by The Webby Awards, which are the Oscars for the internet.

And while their esteemed judges decide on top prizes, there’s also a community vote…

And right now we’re neck and neck tied in FIRST PLACE 😬

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