“Students will enter the classroom, place their cell phones in a box and receive a copy of the week’s reading to sink their teeth into. The first four and a half hours of class will be spent reading in silence, the professor said. Students may get up to go to the bathroom, but they won’t be able to chat, check their phones or even take notes. The physical experience of reading a book, sticking with your emotions and sitting with boredom is worth the struggle.” Justin MacDaniel
We cannot attend this exciting new course at this university, but we can create some reading stillness in our day. Today, take a book you have been wanting to read for a long time, fix a period of time (Okay, 7 hours may not be doable…today) where you can commit to reading undisturbed and follow the instructions in the quote above. Enjoy your reading time and stay in place even if you get bored. Honour the time commitment you made to yourself. How easy was it to do? Did it get easier as time went on or did you find yourself just thinking about the notifications you were missing out on? No judgement, whatever happens is just information. If you keep doing this regularly and working through the boredom or the need to distract yourself, focussed attention might be your prize.
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