Bored? Good!
I find myself staring aimlessly at the wall in front of me relatively often. The thoughts bounce around in my head: “now what,” “what next,” and—all too frequently—“I am so bored and have nothing to do.”
I will be the first to admit that boredom is often self-imposed, brought on by the avoidance of other, important tasks that aren’t urgent enough for me to focus my energy on just yet. I think it is great to have free time, but what happens when your attention span is so shot from all the endless scrolling—or hours of having to sit through lessons—that you cannot seem to focus on anything you want to? Idleness, aimlessness, and boredom—that’s what happens.
So, how do you avoid being bored? Here is my take: you should not! Avoiding being bored is what got us here in the first place! Bored? Good! We need to bring back boredom and find creative ways to release it, rather than avoiding it altogether through doom-scrolling.
Boredom is a helpful tool because it allows us to look inwards and evaluate why we become bored and what enriching activities we can do to ease it that do not have to do with online spaces.
Moreover, when we evaluate why we become bored, it will help us with returning to activities that force us to create. I think one of the most human feelings we experience is wanting to create, contribute, be something outside of yourself. When you embrace boredom and allow it to drive you to explore other outlets of creativity or open-mindedness, you allow yourself to extend outside of the bounds that you might not have even realized were there.
