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Thumb Twiddling

A little while back, I joked that I should get in the habit of twiddling my thumbs so that I don't show up late for meetings. It was just a joke, since I really can't handle sitting around doing nothing. I get bored very, very easily, and intentionally putting myself in a position to be bored sounds like one of the outer circles of hell to me.

Of course, life has a funny way of throwing you curveballs.

It all started when I was sitting in some random meeting where I wasn't expected to say much. In those situations, I tend to move my hands around. You can think of it as fidgeting if you like, but it's more about keeping myself from tuning out than it is about nervous energy. It's not exactly like status meetings scare me.

Anyhow, I was doing my usual thing. However, I became a little self-conscious about moving my hands, so I made an effort to keep more still. I figured clasping my hands in front of me was a decent plan, so I went with that. For the clever amongst you, you will have noticed that my hands were now in prime thumb-twiddling position.

For a while, though, I held out. I was trying to fidget less, not more, so I held still. This could only last for so long, though. The meeting was a fairly boring one, we were going to be there for a while, and ultimately, I only had so much self control. Eventually, the inevitable started happening; I started twiddling my thumbs in the middle of this meeting.

When I noticed what I was doing, I couldn't help but let out a small chuckle. Luckily no one heard me, and no one noticed that I was clearly bored. Still, it is not uncommon for me to clasp my hands together in the middle of meetings. If this was simply the first step down a slippery slope, I may end up doing this in more meetings to come.

The next few boring meetings are going to be very, very interesting.

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