Notes to self: Days of boredom

Do you ever get those days where you are utterly bored with everything? You wake up and realise for the first time that your bedroom is boring, that you have a day of relentless sameness ahead of you and that you have to wear clothes you hate because everything you have in your wardrobe is rubbish? The sky seems a bit greyer and your friends will be on holiday or not answering the phone or not able to speak to you for some reason.

I have these moments every few months. I decide I need a new hobby, a new look, a new career — and a new identity. I find lying in bed watching girlie DVDs, wearing a face mask and eating chocolate-cake mix from the bowl helps.

I think I have a short attention span, but I know I'm not alone in suddenly getting an urge to do everything in your life differently. It's from these moments that I have had some of my most unconventional ideas and so I would like to advise you to not make any rash decisions.

On these days, I go and buy gold leggings or sign up for ballet classes or buy six-inch heels. None of these made me feel better. In fact, they made me feel, respectively, fat, as graceful as a baby elephant and sad I couldn't walk in them. Again, I have signed up to go and live in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal for a month of meditation, spent Dh1,000 in Kinokuniya on books on yoga and decided to volunteer to help teach refugees. This is all very well, except that I get cramps when I meditate, I don't have Dh1,000 to spend on anything and I can't volunteer because I have responsibilities.

I wish I was the kind of person who got bored and went to the cinema — but I'm not. I get bored and move to Dubai. Or get bored and decide I'm going to become a sheep-shearer in New Zealand.

I suppose there comes a point when you have to decide that you're going to make the best of what you have or choose to gamble it all and hope your next move is a good one. I plan to gamble it all and hope I've learnt from those "gold leggings" mistakes.