The other day, a few colleagues and I realized something about a thing we were doing at work.
We realized that we have reached the boring stage of the thing.
At the time of this writing, we’ve been doing this particular thing for over six years, and for those of us involved since its inception, parts of it are starting to feel repetitive. The prologue of boredom.
It’s easy to imagine how anything can lose steam at this stage. It’s more exciting to grab on to something new. But the realization we had is just the opposite.
Reaching boring is a great thing. An admirable thing.
**
I took my son to his very first baseball tryout a few weekends ago.
We were surrounded by baseball, equal parts intimidating and beautiful. I was noticing all sorts of things that day, and one in particular caught my eye.
I noticed a kid (much older than my son) who was helping the coaches with the tryout. More specifically than the kid himself, I noticed his glove. It was the same as mine, with one key difference. His glove had patina.
You can’t buy patina, you have to earn it. In the case of a baseball glove, patina is what happens when that glove has echoed the pop of many baseballs hitting its pocket. The patina on his glove told me everything about this kid’s experience with baseball.
Depending on the object, patina can take years to develop. In order to earn it, you have to use the object well and often. You have to go far beyond the initial excitement that naturally draws you to want to use it.
Patina only shows up once you get to boring.
**
Patina is a living thing. It evolves with time. No two things develop patina in the same way, even if they are the same things.
Patina is easy to see on physical things. It’s also present in invisible things.
The ease of laughing with an old friend, that’s patina. The comfort you feel when you see a that a certain colleague is also a part of a new project at work, that’s patina. The barely perceptible smirk you have on your face when you find a mug of coffee in a random place in your house because your partner’s mind floated onto something else and stayed there, that’s patina.
By learning to appreciate the patina of something, perhaps even admiring it, we can begin falling in love with that thing all over again.
If we’re willing to see it, this is the beauty of boring.
I hope you get there.
