“In order to live free and happily you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.” ~Richard Bach
(This is part two of a two-part series on boredom. Click here to read Part I: Are you Bored or Just Boring?)
Boredom is a pernicious thief that steals joy from the moments a life is made of. It’s a symptom of something misaligned, an internal alarm that indicates a needed change. It’s the setting on your internal thermostat that reads “too cold.”
Most fundamentally, boredom is a sign that life is not being fully used as the precious gift it is, that something is missing, not externally in the thing that bores you, but in the character, personality, priorities or mindset of the person feeling bored.
Do you want to end the slow drip of boredom once and for all?
You can, you know. And it’s not even all that difficult either … once you’ve accepted that the cause of your boredom is inside you, not “out there,” in the stale activity, uninteresting person or lackluster event.
How to End the Tyranny of Boredom
Four characteristics that stomp out, crush and transform boredom into a happy, passionate life no longer tainted by boredom’s stink:
1. Be Curious
Let your mind go. Let your imagination soar. Let your natural curiosity free of its self-imposed restrictions. Ask questions. Seek answers. Want to know, to understand, to learn. Hunger for knowledge. Thirst for understanding.
What do curious people look like? They are people who buy books, have personal libraries, attend seminars, sign up for workshops, read reputable blogs, watch documentaries and fill their minds with more questions than answers while passionately pursuing their interests.
They stretch their minds, challenging what they think they know, deepening their growing interest in the world, in people and in life-governing principles. They are not the single-key pounding musicians that fill their lives and interests with a single passion. Their interests are eclectic, varied and many.
2. Take Action
At some point, you have to put the book down and try out what it claims. Apply the content. Put ideas to the test. Put words into action.
People of action are rarely bored. They just don’t have time for boredom because they don’t sit around doing nothing long enough to get bored in the first place. Their lives are full of challenges and meaningful activities. They do interesting things and get into what they do.
Wonder why paint smells? Go look it up.
Wonder where Timbuktu is? Get a map.
Curious about nasturtiums or carpenter ants or opera? Go learn something new.
• Improve a skill.
• Develop a talent.
• Feed your creativity.
• Work on a trait.
• Overcome a habit
Too many people sacrifice their curiosity at the altar of inaction. The world is at our fingertips and yet too many people wonder and never learn, are curious and never look, don’t know and never ask, want to and never try.
Don’t let moments of curiosity die in the swamplands of laziness, apathy or indifference. (Tweet)
Get up and pursue your desire to know and do. Feed the fragile spark of curiosity and coax it into a raging passion of hunger to discover, to challenge, to try, to explore, to build, to climb, to run, to create and live with so much passion that there’s simply no room for boredom.
3. Be Adaptable
If you don’t like what’s on TV, turn it off! If your plans aren’t working out, do something else. If the path you’re on doesn’t do it for you, don’t continue down that dead-end road just because you started it. Change course! Find a new path. Break the mold. Stop pigeon holding yourself into a tight corner of repetitive sameness.
When you can do an about-face smack dab in the middle of life’s 4-lane superhighway, you will always be able to avoid boredom by simply changing direction and doing something else.
Learn to think outside the box. If the game gets rained out, play soccer … inside … using a balloon! If the park is closed, move the picnic to the backyard … or the food court at a mall … or your living room floor.
Don’t be a victim to inflexibility anymore; learn to adapt, move on and be happy!
4. Be Spontaneous
When my daughter was young, I would pick her up from school and announce, “Guess what! We’re going to the beach!”
Other times it would be the mountains, or the children’s museum, or the nature park for a 2-mile hike. No planning or packing or dressing just right for the occasion. Just going. That willingness to be spontaneous chases boredom out the back door and opens you up to so much more life has to offer.
Too many plans are planned to death and the thing being planned for is never done because it never gets out of the planning stage. (Tweet)
If you fear underpreparation more than you desire the thing you’re preparing to do, you decrease the likelihood of it ever getting done. Plans will lead to backup plans which will need plans to prepare for additional planning.
Be spontaneous once in a while! It won’t kill you to simply act on a few unexamined whims from time to time! (as long as there’s no spontaneous skydiving without preparing a parachute or violating basic laws of decency on an impulse!).
Doing the same things the same way, without deviation, thought or intention is a recipe for boredom. (Tweet)
So go ahead and sign up for the martial arts class or scuba lessons, guitar or ballroom dance. Take a road trip. Sing out loud. Do something you don’t usually do merely for the sake of doing it.
It won’t be long before your new-found spontaneity will drive your boredom to move out and find someone else’s life to bother.
Afterthoughts
I once heard it told of a young boy who listened to a sermon and found it extremely boring. The preacher had droned on for what seemed like a monotonous eternity. After church the boy was befuddled as his dad went on about how good the sermon had been.
“Now come on, dad!” the boy finally exclaimed, “How could you have possibly thought that sermon was any good?”
The dad’s answer is the answer I offer you as the attitude that will transform your life if adopted as your own. Boredom will forever fade into history. Each moment of each day will be experienced as a moment of possibility, a moment to cherish and nurture and kindle into something wonderful.
He said, “Son, whenever I listen to a talk at church where the speaker seems to be struggling, instead of complaining about what he’s saying or failing to say, I simply give the sermon in my mind I think he should have given. And you know what? I’ve never heard a bad sermon since.”
The greatest prescription to a life of excitement and passion is to be thoroughly, completely, unashamedly, unabashedly entertained by life.
Take interest in your own thoughts. Use them to reshape your experiences. Find something you can get excited about and go get excited about it. Change how you see and interpret the world. If there’s a bad sermon, change it, rewrite it in your mind, turn whatever you’re doing into something better.
If you’re in a waiting room or a long line, read a book or write a poem or edit an article or start creating the masterpiece of your life.
Don’t let circumstances dictate your mood. Let your attitude determine how you experience circumstances. (Tweet)
Fill your life with meaning and purpose, with service and adventure, with introspection and creativity, with spontaneity and adaptability, appreciation, curiosity and action and life will hardly slow down long enough to feel bored ever again.
Your Turn …
What do you do to keep from getting bored?
What would you have added to help end the epidemic of boredom?
Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay
I always was a positive person, I believe in Law of Attraction, tried to try everything, pretty much like you, Ken. But for the last 6 months or so, I’ve been struggling. “What’s the point”, I thought, “All this wealth, friends and hobbies I found haven’t made me a different person. I still have my up and down days, I still sometimes laugh and sometimes cry, so was it all worth it?”. I was scared, because before, in my down moments, I said to myself “It won’t get any better” in the most positive sense, meaning no matter dreams of mine will come true, I will still be sometimes happy, sometimes sad or mad, it won’t magically make me euphoric 100% of the time, so I might just enjoy the current moment. But that phrase began to scare me now for some reason. But when reading the first part of this entry a week ago, something really clicked in me. Like it was written personally for me by someone who knew me all my life. I’ve been in an awesome mood since that blog post, I remembered what’s the point of living again. I painted, I wrote music, I did new things, much more in this last week than in the last 3 months. And I don’t see the end of it anytime soon. Thank you, Ken!
This really means a lot to me, Roman. It’s why I do what I do here at M2bH. So I thank you for sharing this with me. I wish you the best on this adventure called life. It’s a wild ride with many, many twists and turns in it. We all have them. But we all deal with them differently. I’m thrilled something I shared had such a wonderful impact on your life.
While I’m not a believer in the Law of Attraction, I am a believer in the capacity of the human spirit to rise above circumstances and do wonderful things. But it’s all in the daily steps we take, the daily decisions we make, the daily attitudes and thoughts we choose to harbor as we confront and interact with life that makes all the difference.
Thanks again for the comment, Roman. You’ve made my week!
>While I’m not a believer in the Law of Attraction,..
Well then, I have to congratulate you even more, because after a year of reading I couldn’t tell that. What you write feels very right and correct with what I believe, no contradictions what so ever. And happens to be the best (And I think the only) Law of Attraction ‘troubleshooting manuals’ that I’ve ever read.
>…I am a believer in the capacity of the human spirit to rise above circumstances and do wonderful things.
Same things, different names? 🙂
Haha! I rarely spend much time talking about what I don’t believe or don’t like, so I’m not surprised you didn’t know, Roman. I suppose where I most differ from LOA is the vibrational attraction explanation that draws outcomes to you when we get ourselves vibrating at the same frequency. Just sounds too pseudo-scientific to me.
But when people talk about LOA and simply mean that we tend to attract to us a reflection of who we are (good people feeling more comfortable with other good people) or that positive thoughts tend to create positive conditions, I totally agree.
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity. – Dorothy Parker.
Love it!
I blame boredom on two things. First is modern living and how technology including the internet and smart phones are sapping our attention spans. Secondly is that I believe boredom to be a lack of a focus and maybe a sign of depression.
If we’re talking about being ‘bored’ with something then to me that is just relative. I find Baseball extremely boring yet Golf can be exciting when they are pretty much the same thing. Hitting a ball.
jamie flexman recently posted … 6 Ways To Instantly Make Yourself A Better Person
Hey there, Jamie! I like your thinking. I do believe modern living has made it much easier to be bored today. We have become accustomed to periodic adrenaline surges and attention grabbing sounds and movements that keep our minds from having to pay attention and follow story lines and plot development. Camera shifting, MTV blazing, sexuality pervasive societies find it difficult to slow down and still fell engaged.
I suppose I don’t mean so much that one thing or another is boring than that there is a substantial difference in happiness and quality of life between those who are frequently bored (who find baseball, and sports, and reading and hiking and writing and just about everything boring) and those who find virtually nothing boring. The more we are bored with whatever we are doing, I believe the more we are missing something, that we have perspectives or mindsets or attitudes that are keeping us from enjoying more of life.
Does that make sense? So in one sense, yes it’s subjective or relative. But in another sense (as I’ve explained it), it’s evidence something is missing on the inside.
What do you think?
I agree there, but also I believe that the higher someones IQ the higher the chance that they will find things boring.
Also a lack of dopamine can have an effect on the brain so that we find it difficult to engage in activities that we would otherwise love to do. This impact on brain chemistry could be falsely attributed to boredom when it could be something deeper like you say.
Maybe all forms of boredom hint at something at fault with the wiring of the brain.. maybe everything can be attributed to the brain in some way, both good and bad.
jamie flexman recently posted … 6 Ways To Instantly Make Yourself A Better Person
That’s an interesting take on it, Jamie. Perhaps a higher IQ may suggest taking interest in different things, but I’m not sure it would suggest boredom per se more often. If a really smart dude found the comics boring, he could still pick up a book on integrated DNA technologies instead. If she found sports boring, she could play mind games. Boredom seems to me to be much more about attitude than intellect.
As far as dopamine is concerned, it may go both ways. The lack of dopamine may mean depressed interest in things. But taking little interest in things also suppresses dopamine production.
Still, you make a good point for those who do have chemical deficiencies. It must be a frustrating thing to read about ways to improve life, only to be hampered by a chemical imbalance. Thanks for sharing that insight, Jamie.
Awesome Ken, you have given food for thought to those who believe that they are bored. Nice post.
Neil Butterfield recently posted … Detox – Don’t Starve
Thanks Neil. If I do nothing else here but provide a bit of food for thought to some of my readers, I consider myself a success. So that’s a huge compliment, Neil. Thank you.
I like to read or watch a good show or sports event on TV. I also get myself busy with work or even housework when I am bored. There’s never a moment in the day when I am at a loss for things to do.
Wade Balsdon recently posted … Can a Healthy Diet Reverse Type 2 Diabetes?
I think there are very many people who are bored even in the midst of doing other things, Wade. They just find it sickening to be doing something so mundane as to clean (or study or read, etc.). They feel the need to be actively entertained. So I think it’s great that you can do some of those things many would consider boring tasks and find them meaningful and interesting. That’s a tribute to you, Wade
Why do you think we don’t feel bored by work or housework and others do?
Way back in the dark ages of the 1970s I read a lot of Fritz Perls – the founder of Gestalt Therapy. He had some interesting ideas about boredom – basically that if you live an authentic life, own your feelings, you won’t feel bored, but if you suppress what is real for you – feelings, intuitions, urges – (as we all do) then that is when boredom and worse, depression, set in. It is true I think! and worth experimenting with.
“The dark ages of the 1970s” — Haha! I read some Gestalt back int he late 70s as well, but frankly don’t remember much of it. I’d have to break out my books and review what I read way back then to remember a Gestalt from a hole int eh ground.
I do have a question though. If boredom is a feeling then would owning boredom cure boredom? 😉
If being authentic means that if something is starting to lose my attention, I walk away from it to find something else that interests me more, then I would agree that authenticity can be a cure for boredom.
Loved the thoughtful comment, Vivienne. You made me think!
Own the boredom, stay with the emptiness, and something else will emerge! (Probably something else that interests you more will grab your attention 🙂 )
“Stay with the emptiness … Probably something else that interests you more will grab your attention.” Hmmm. I don’t think I have that kind of patience, Vivienne! 🙂 I’m not so good with emptiness or waiting for something to emerge. I would much rather go out and do the grabbing myself. 🙂
Ken, I cringe extraordinarily at this word, bored, boredom, boring. A family member launched into that word very early in life, and that’s when I began to have such an averse reaction. I’m sorry, but I have to say this…people who are bored are lazy.
There is way too much to do in this world, and if you don’t carpe diem, you will not live live with energy and enthusiasm.
I think, like happiness, boredom is a choice. You need to push yourself to choose the path of knowledge, activity, wonder, and enlightenment.
Jayme Soulati recently posted … The Happy Friday Series: What’s So Great About Being Happy?
Wonderfully said, Jayme! I couldn’t agree with you more. I cringe too at the word and at the meaning of self-imposed helplessness behind it. And like you say, we have total control over whether we are bored or not. Thanks so much for so passionately adding your thoughts here. From what I can tell of you from your blog and the conversations over on Google Plus, I’m not surprised at all that boredom is a 4-letter no-no at your house! Love it!
Great Article Ken
The problem with me is that I start out like a comet ..and then fizzle
If I can only sustain that passion… Is it better to be 120 watts for a while? or 40 watts forever.
I love your question, John: “Is it better to be 120 watts for a while or 40 watts forever?”
The answer is: It depends.
120 watts to get a project up and going might be needed to get it off the ground, but only requires 40 watts to keep it going (like a rocket’s initial thrust to clear the atmosphere versus the thrust needed to keep it headed in outer space toward the moon).
Other projects may draw our passion at first before we realize it’s not what we truly want to spend all our time doing, so we cool off a bit or drop it altogether.
There may be room for compromise as well. If 120 watts is too difficult to sustain, but 40 watts doesn’t heat up that part of life adequately, then maybe something like 90 watts can be sustained longer without the fizzle.
Other projects only need intermittent 120 watts worth of energy. So mixing it up, full throttle passion up hills, easing off down hills might work perfectly.
Sometimes what’s needed is finding what drives you most. Experiment. Find what makes you tick, what drives itself. Perhaps you just haven’t found the passion you were meant to introduce to the world.
But make no mistakes about it. Passions are much prettier things in the mind than where the rubber meets the pavement, as they say. It takes drive and determination and resolve and lots and lots of old fashioned hard work. Sometimes we just haven’t built up those particular muscles yet and keeping at it at whatever wattage you can muster can help prepare yourself to sustain something much brighter in the near future.
A very insightful question, John. Hope I did it justice here.
[…] How to Cure Boredom Forever (four simple solutions) […]
This did not help at all!
So Rick, you did more than just read about the steps, right? You actually applied them over time, worked at becoming more curios and spontaneous for more than a time or two, but actually worked at it, then came back, perhaps a few weeks or months later to report that, after all your effort at applying what I wrote about, it just had no effect on your boredom, correct?
Very surprising. Unless, of course, you thought reading the steps was enough, or trying them out once or twice would have any impact on a life of developing an attitude of boredom.
I’m assuming more the bottom than the top and would just invite you to actually try the steps, over time, and THEN see what happens and come let me know.
[…] you find yourself bored after work, then there are more cures, depending on budget and facilities, and your age. No one is suggesting a mid-life parachuting […]
Best article ever on boredom , it has changed my life , thanks a lot
Some times it’s difficult to manage a boredam.. Cause you can’t be happy all the time…
Great, if you can go to the park and kick a ball about, afford to go to the theatre/opera, if you have friends to meet for a coffee! If you’re alone, unwell and poor, this is crap and just makes you feel *more* guilty!
So sorry your situation is not what you wished it was. But there is no reason to feel guilty for not doing something you can’t physically or financially do. I think you might have missed the main point of the article. Notice I didn’t title any of the section, “Spend Time at the Park” or “Get to the Theater”. Each subheading bore names like “Be Curious” and “Take Action.” These are internal traits that are independent of most circumstances. Even prisoners can apply these principles to avoid boredom. I suggest you go back to the article and ask a different question when you read it again: “What CAN I do when boredom creeps in? What CAN I learn? Where CAN I go? Who CAN I serve? What trait or characteristic or skill CAN I start learning? And HOW can I do this or that? WHAT is available to me nearby or for free? Always take the next step or two or three or ten past the “I’m stuck and there’s nothing I can do about it” mindset. Exploration doesn’t need a Jeep, an expensive set of hiking boots or even a mountain. You can explore your neighborhood, the underground world of ants, your neighbors books you can ask to borrow, a tabletop to learn different rhythms and beats. The possibilities are limitless, even if your present set of circumstances seem so limiting compared to others. If you mentally and attitudinally open up first, then you will find the world of ideas and possibilities will open wider than you ever thought possible. And boredom will then be a ting of the past. Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Tereza. I wish you the best!
With winter on it’s merry way, I feel that boredom is just around the corner. I dread winter and all the snow and gloomy feelings. I used to enjoy putting puzzles together but I have osteoarthritis in my fingers, so I’m afraid that it will hurt my fingers. I suppose that I can sing and dance but my husband will think that I’m nuts. I really feel like I’m just plain lazy and I can’t snap out of it. I take antidepressants but I still feel down. I have a nice comfortable bike that I could ride but I just don’t feel like riding it. God I wish that someone could help me.
Hi Anna,
Go ahead and sing and dance and let your husband think what he wants! Sing if you feel to sing and dance if your body wants to move! Other than that, you might want to start by reading. Read novels and how-to books, self-improvement and other interests you may have. Let that inspire you to go learn outdoors and explore things around you. Feed your mind and let your interests follow.
I really enjoyed your article and the personal best part for me was ‘to be curious’. I spent many years suppressing curiosity because it could lead me to some awful situation but now, I’ll take a chance. That is why I started creating website. The thing I always wanted to do but never got my hand on it. It’s moneysurecanbuyhappiness.com keep up the good work. Looking forward to read more!
These are great suggestions! What is your source of inspiration?
Great post!
Also, love these ideas: “If the game gets rained out, play soccer … inside … using a balloon! If the park is closed, move the picnic to the backyard … or the food court at a mall … or your living room floor.”
Life is really too rich and full of wonder to ever be bored!