7 a.m.

My son comes down the stairs for another school day. He feeds the betta fish that's been floating dead at the top of the bowl for who knows how long.My daughter crawls up in a ball on the couch while I get breakfast ready. She watches a recorded episode of "Liv and Maddie" for about the fifteenth straight time.I pack my boy's peanut butter and jelly sandwich for his lunch. I think he's on track to break the school record for most consecutively eaten PBJs, now estimated to be three years running.My daughter has ingested so many chicken fingers over the past four years of her life that I've been looking for an egg left on her seat whenever she gets up.My wife fills our pillboxes each week, not with meds, but with vitamin supplements to keep our immune systems strong and healthy. It's working, too. The kids miss very little school. My wife and I never spend sick days in bed.I used to think that routines and habits were boring, but now I have a different take on them. It's good to have predictable behaviors that simplify what can become a stressful life for many of us."Habits help us get through the day with minimal stress and deliberation," says Wendy Wood, a professor of psychology at the University of Southern California. Wood explains that many successful people can use their brainpower because much of their day is spent doing repeated or mindless activities.Yet too much mindlessness can lead to too much boredom. According to the website, "A Life of Productivity," most Americans spend 43 percent of each non-sleeping day in front of TV, computer and cellphone screens, staring at these light boxes without using much brain activity. Our kids are number one in the world in complaining about being bored.Several years ago, I spent a week in the deep Canadian woods next to a fly-in only lake. My friend and I had no outside communication. We brought in minimal supplies and ate the fish we caught. Every day, a plane flew overhead. If we left a red flag on the dock, which we never did, the pilot would have landed on the lake to address our needs.I set up a daily routine there. When we weren't catching pike and walleye, I walked the woods with an energy I have rarely felt since. The wonder of nature inspired me to think thoughts that literally changed my life for the better.At this lake, every night I sat on the dock under the stars and learned to appreciate my own existence with every other living thing.A lot of people wouldn't pay a nickel to have an experience like this one. No texting? No TV? Seven days of fishing in the same lake and walking in the woods? Borrrring!Philosopher and writer C.K. Chesterton said, "There are no uninteresting events, only uninteresting people."When someone says the words, "This is boring," I bet that he or she is not putting much mental energy into the activity. Like watching TV, they just sit back and expect to be entertained.That explains why one person who probably eats the same brand of cereal every morning gets excited when he looks at a pristine mountain lake while someone else who stresses over what to have for breakfast will see nothing more than a big hole filled with water.We think we have to constantly change what we do to conquer boredom. I read about a couple who were married for 65 years. They were asked why they didn't get bored with each other."We always eat our lunch at 12:30 every day," said the husband."He has a ham on rye and I have egg salad on toast," said the wife. "And since we eat the same thing most of the time, we have good conversation about the events of the day. You see, talking to each other means more to us than what we are eating."Now I know what my kids have to do to become interesting people when they grow up.Have another PBJ sandwich, son. Keep eating your chicken fingers, little lady.Rich Strack can be reached at

katehep11@gmail.com.