the restless mind

I am awake for about sixteen hours every day. All this time my mind is engaged with something or other. There seems no alternative; it will anyway be engaged with something automatically whether I like it or not. If it is not engaged in work, pleasure, reading or day dreaming, it will get uneasy inviting some disturbing thoughts. That is why when there is nothing interesting for the mind to do it is called boredom. When one is bored, disturbing thoughts nag and push for entry into the mind.
Not having anything to do is not boredom. Having nothing interesting to do, or be engaged in, is boredom. Having nothing at all to do, nothing interesting or nothing uninteresting to be engaged in, can actually be a pleasant silence, a calm quietude. Interest in something keeps the mind occupied so as to avoid unwanted disturbances and uneasiness. If I keep the mind engaged in observing the mind itself, that is to say that if I am aware and attentive to the very movements of the mind, then, I am never bored. Slowly pleasant silence also quietly enters in.
Why the mind is normally engaged in something or other incessantly? There is no respite even for a moment unless one is asleep. Sometimes the thoughts are pleasant, other times compulsorily unpleasant. There are anxieties over anticipated pain. There are pleasures to look forward. Most of the time the mind is engaged with something in the present. And it gets absorbed in the incoming sense impressions. Why can’t the mind be still without being hooked on to senses or thoughts?
Is it because that is its intrinsic nature? Or is it because it is a habit acquired from birth? Or, is it to avoid things unpleasant and painful from coming in uninvited. I think it could be the last. Of course when it is engaged with known things pleasant or even unpleasant, no unknown fears can come in.
I find that in my case it is clearly to avoid the onslaught of fears or the fear that barges in as soon as the mind is empty. Can grace come in instead of fears if one cultivates some suitable habit? There is no time left!