I grew up as a total TV addict.

One time, I missed an entire week of school and work because I was glued to the first three seasons of Lost.

It wasn’t just about entertainment. I craved anything that kept my brain engaged. As long as it offered enough stimulation to hold off boredom, I was hooked.

But looking back, I wasn’t just avoiding boredom. I was avoiding the uncomfortable feelings that came with stillness.

The boredom felt suffocating. The emptiness unbearable. So I filled every quiet moment with noise, story, information—anything but presence.

Eventually, I realized boredom wasn’t the problem. It was the signal.

The moment I stopped filling every second with mental stimulation, I noticed a quiet, almost panicked discomfort just underneath the surface.

Turns out, the boredom wasn’t empty. It was a doorway.

And if you’re willing to walk through it, there’s a surprising kind of aliveness waiting on the other side...

Boredom isn’t nothing. It’s withdrawal.

As Fives, we crave stimulation. Mental puzzles, rabbit holes, YouTube deep dives. Our minds are like high-performance engines, always looking for something to engage.

So when we try to slow down or “be present,” we often interpret the stillness as boring or pointless. But that’s not really what’s happening.

What we’re feeling isn’t boredom. It’s the withdrawal symptoms of overstimulation.

Presence feels boring because we’re no longer numbing ourselves with thought.

We’re coming down from a mental high. And just like any withdrawal, it feels uncomfortable at first. Empty. Awkward. Like there’s nothing to hold onto.

But beneath that discomfort? Something real starts to surface.

Why presence feels so strange (but secretly powerful)

Here’s what makes presence so hard for Fives:

• It offers no clear “product.” There’s no metric for success. Just being is the whole point, which feels wildly inefficient.
• It exposes unprocessed emotion. When we’re still, feelings we’ve been avoiding tend to float up. Which is exactly what we don’t want.
• It removes control. Being present means letting go of the filters and frameworks we normally use to feel safe.
• It lacks novelty. Familiar environments and simple moments don’t offer the kind of mental stimulation we’re used to chasing.
• It feels vulnerable. Presence brings us into direct contact with ourselves, and we might not like what we find.

So, no wonder we reach for our phones. Or start thinking about dinner. Or open a new browser tab. Anything but sitting in that weird, squirmy, spacious now.

That space is where your aliveness lives.

And learning to sit with it is how you reconnect to yourself.

Try this: the “Playfully Present” experiment

If you’re curious to explore this without feeling like you’re meditating on a rock for hours, try this instead:

Step 1: Pick a neutral, low-stimulation moment

Washing dishes. Standing in line. Sitting on the porch. Choose a moment that’s usually “boring” and commit to being fully there for just one minute.

Step 2: Engage your senses like a five-year-old

Don’t analyze. Notice. The texture of the plate. The hum of the fridge. The way the sunlight hits the counter. See how much detail you can soak in without labeling or judging.

Step 3: Let yourself be a little enchanted

See if you can shift from “this is boring” to “this is alive.” What happens when you stop reaching for meaning and just let the moment be what it is?

It might feel strange at first. But with practice, those boring moments start to feel different, like tiny portals back to your body, your breath, your life.

Presence isn’t boring. It’s just unfamiliar.

And once you stop running from it, you might find that it’s exactly what you’ve been looking for.