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The other day my little brother was complaining that he was bored. Not the dramatic kind of bored where you're looking for something specific to do. Just genuinely bored. After about ten minutes of hearing him complain, I told him to go outside, ride his bike, meet some friends, literally anything.

He looked at me and said, "But what would we even do?"

I laughed and told him that's exactly how we used to spend most of our time.

A few minutes later he asked me something that caught me off guard.

"What did you guys actually do before phones?"

The more I thought about it, the harder that question became to answer.

Because the truth is we didn't always have a plan.

We'd leave the house in the morning, find a friend, and figure things out as we went. Sometimes we'd ride our bikes around for hours. Sometimes we'd play cricket in random empty plots. Sometimes we'd sit somewhere talking nonsense until it got dark. Entire afternoons would disappear and if you asked what we accomplished, the answer would probably be "nothing."

But somehow those are the memories I remember the most.

I remember getting lost and finding a shortcut home. I remember knocking on friends' doors to see if they could come outside. I remember making plans that lasted all of thirty seconds before changing completely.

There was no group chat organizing everything. No location sharing. No endless scrolling while sitting next to each other.

If we were bored, we had to do something about it.

My little brother listened to all this and then said, "That actually sounds fun."

And honestly, I think he's right.

Life wasn't necessarily better. Every generation says that about their childhood.

But I do think we were forced to be more present. When there wasn't a screen ready to entertain us every second, we ended up creating our own entertainment. Looking back, some of my favorite memories happened on days where absolutely nothing special was supposed to happen.

It's strange because at the time those days felt ordinary.

Now they're the ones I miss the most.