How to solve the psychological phenomena called boredom?
If we want to solve a problem, we need to understand it, and know all its causes and triggers.
What I think to be the source of boredom is the lack of meaningful activities or the pursuit of easy-to-get-to goals, simply because we are lazy. It can also take over one’s mind after getting presented to extremely amusing activities over a long period of time, making the mind uninterested in the little joys of life.
What I characterize as a person with a healthy state of mind, is when he has 2 things:
- Something to do right now.
- Something to look for.
Although boredom can represent the early stages of depression, what I believe to be the main difference between boredom and depression is the fact that someone who is depressed cannot express any desire to do something right now, nor to want to achieve something in the future. On the other hand, boredom is simply the fact that the person feeling bored, just didn’t find what to do or to look for, yet.
The most generic answer to this question would be to find your passion. To some extent, this is true, but in my opinion, it’s not enough. And that is for the sole reason that finding your passion might take time and effort. And you shouldn’t be dealing with boredom along the path to discovering your passion.
Moreover, finding your passion will not mean that you’ll stop feeling bored! Not at all, and that I’m sure of, and it happened to me more often than you what might think.
To get to the point, there isn’t a defined way to get rid of boredom once and for all, but there are somethings that you can do to control it. Some of these points are what helped me deal with it the most:
- Find a balance between leisure and work. Too much work is depressing, too much leisure gets you bored.
- If you feel bored, think about what you’re lucky to have that someone else doesn’t. The view from your window is boring? Well what if you lose your sight right now? What will you give to just look from that window again? Felling grateful makes the most boring stuff, enjoyable, believe it!
- Get out from your comfort zone and fight your routine. You’re growing up, things you’ve used to like, might seem boring now. You need to keep up with the changes in your mind.
- Find your life purpose/ the goal you want to achieve, keep thinking of it, let it fuel your motivation, this way you’ll never run out of things to do.
- Get smarter, work on yourself, don’t let your mind suffer more, it craves for information, give it what it wants, don’t let it get bored with the same things it gets.
What worked for me the best was self-improvement. When I decided to work on myself, I’ve discovered many things about myself and the world, which, in a way, helped me discover many activities and ideas to explore and practice.
However, there is a type of boredom you just can’t get rid of, and that’s the boredom of waiting in queues, waiting for someone, or staring at a video loading screen. This type of “conditional” boredom doesn’t represent a serious issue because it fades away on its own as soon as the waiting stops. Well, that’s why we have books, right? (I mean phones obviously).
Hoping that was helpful, and as always, many thanks for reading.
