I’m Bored. What to do?
“Too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty.” — Bertrand Russell
At-home wellness practices include passion projects, workouts, e-courses, self-care routines, cooking, decluttering, and FaceTime with loved ones. Boredom, not so much.
The word has a negative connotation spanning thousands of years. “The Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh (transcribed circa 2000 B.C.) describes the Mesopotamian King Uruk as being ‘oppressed by idleness.’” [1] In Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, Vladimir illustrates nihilistically “We are… bored to death… In an instant all will vanish and we’ll be alone once more, in the midst of nothingness!” 2 Kierkegaard called boredom “the root of all evil.” [3] To top it off, “the Stoic philosopher Seneca (4 B.C. — 65 A.D.) lamented the ubiquity of Taedium vitae (tiredness of life), which he describes chillingly as ‘the tumult of a soul fixated on nothing’; indeed, Taedium vitae was recognised by Roman law as one of the few morally acceptable reasons for suicide.” [4]
This view lingers in modern social science. Some define boredom as “temporary feelings of low-arousal and unpleasant emotions induced by environmental factors.” [5] Others explain it as an “unpleasant, transient affective state, in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest.” [6] When you hear a child cry “I’m bored!” you think of several ways to make the kid useful. We treat ourselves the same way. Whenever that feeling creeps up, you think “What’s wrong with me? What else is there still to do?” Nobody had time for boredom. Except… now we do.
Does boredom deserve its bad rep? Or can the term be re-appropriated by those of us living through the days that the earth stood still? Let’s see what the science says.
3 Things Boredom is Good For you
1. It can make you more creative.
Are you waiting in line at the grocery store? Is the lecturer droning on again? Is your bus delayed? Boredom is that fleeting, unbearable emotion you have just before you reflexively take out your phone and immerse yourself in apps, games, or articles. You get rid of boredom by changing situations, whether that’s getting on the bus or opening an app. Think twice the next time you’re about to pull out your phone, though.
In the absence of external stimuli, the pain of boredom gives you a chance to change your situation internally. “For Heidegger, deep boredom creates a clearing space in which one gains insights into the nature of reality, including the sense that one is responsible for creating meaning in life, and moreover is free and empowered to do so.” [7] Great breakthroughs have resulted from boredom, too. “Decartes allegedly ‘discovered’ the notions of x and y while idling in bed watching a fly on the ceiling, while Einstein reportedly achieved his initial pivotal insight into the nature of relativity while abstractly daydreaming.” [8]
Science backs these stories up. One study showed that “boring activities resulted in increased creativity and that boring reading activities lead to more creativity in some circumstances than boring written activities.” [9] Participants who read phone books increased divergent thinking by coming up with more uses for plastic cups than they would when happy, stressed, or relaxed. “One explanation given was that boredom allowed attention to wander, and the mind to free-associate, thus facilitating creativity.” [10] You can combine things not normally considered, which in turn can lead to solutions to problems in your personal or professional life that would have taken much longer to otherwise solve.
2. It helps you find your Passion
You also get bored when you don’t fulfill passions. You’ve worked hard for years without seeing results and trying to achieve your dreams has become drudgery. Boredom is that intuitive inner guide that nudges you away from what you think your passions are. “What boredom does is to promote the pursuit of alternative situations (physical or mental) when the current situation ceases to be interesting, engaging, or meaningful.” [11] In a house, you don’t call a plumber until triggered by a leaky pipe, just as you wouldn’t know to move on from old routines that no longer serve you and explore new ways to reestablish your life’s meaning without boredom.
People can find meaning from boredom through serving. Some researchers found “Participants were more willing to give to a charity cause when they were bored than when they were not bored.” [12] Other selfless behavior like more family video time or calling up friends may also compel you when you start getting bored. Meaning is not always going to be found when you become more altruistic, though.
Boredom just lets you know the situation you are in is uninteresting for you but doesn’t point you in the direction of your passion. “In an attempt to escape boredom, it is possible that we find ourselves in yet another unsatisfactory, meaningless, or trite situation.” [13] Thus, some level of self-awareness must also be used to help boredom guide us in the right direction.
3. It could be essential to our happiness.
Boredom also arises after achieving milestones. You enjoy preparing food, for instance. So, you make a recipe book, market it well, and inspire millions through your creation. You fulfill your dream. Now what?
You could make more books, but the prospect no longer appeals since you’ve already learned the process. Boredom is this sort of weariness. “You believe that the possession of a certain thing you desire will bring you fulfillment. You manage to secure possession of that thing, but, instead of the fulfillment you expected, you find yourself feeling dissatisfied, perhaps even empty and depleted.” [14]. Before self-quarantine, you wished to spend more time at home. Now that your wish is granted on repeat, you suddenly desire nature walks. We tend not to appreciate what we have until it’s gone. A grass-is-always-greener-on-the-other-side loop develops.
To handle this boredom issue, selling another recipe book shouldn’t be the focus but rather creating new recipes. This process-oriented approach is what Friedrich Nietzsche called the will to power. It is “a desire to overthrow, crush, become master, to be a thirst for enemies, resistance and triumphs.” [15] Once mastery is achieved in one area, you feel boredom with the process, indicating it’s time to change projects. “It is not the satisfaction of the will that causes pleasure, but rather the will’s forward thrust and again and again becoming master over that which stands in its way.” [16] Wellness has typically been associated with fulfillment, but for Nietzsche, it is in continually finding more challenging goals and dreams to tackle that leads to “the great health, a health that one doesn’t only have, but also acquires continually and must acquire because one gives it up again and again, and must give it up!… alas, so that nothing will sate us anymore!” [17] No-thing satisfies because results come and go, but the joyful struggle of mastery runs through achieving any result.
This idea of wellness is shared by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the Hungarian psychologist who conceptualized flow state. “We feel a sense of exhilaration… These moments are often not passive, receptive relaxing times. They tend to occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something that is difficult or worthwhile.” [18] But Nietzsche ignores boredom. This “health” through constant bludgeoning challenges away can be dangerous. “The issue is not so much with boredom per se, but with people’s inability to tolerate or engage with it. Indeed… dysfunctional gambling behaviour associated with boredom proneness, can be viewed as the result of a desperate fleeing from boredom.” [19] Burnout stems from such fleeing, too.
Csikszentmihalyi departs from Nietzsche by accounting for boredom. “The ultimate test for the ability to control the quality of experience is what a person does in solitude, with no external demands to give structure to attention.” [20] He argues that balancing hustle and boredom is where true wellness lies.
“The goals that have sustained action over a period do not have enough power to give meaning to the entirety of life… Detached reflection, a realistic weighing of options and their consequences are generally considered to be the best approach to a good life. Activity and reflection should complement each other. Action is blind, while reflection is impotent.” [21]
This balance plays out today in social media. Will to power is gamified through interactive apps. “The anthropologist Genevieve Bell suggests that recent technological innovations like the smartphone have created a world of constant distraction that prevents people from ever having to be bored.” [22] But people are realizing the toxic effects, too. The same anthropologist “points to the emergence of trends such as ‘digital detoxing’ as indicators that people need the time and space to occasionally be bored.” [23]
Becoming Bored
Balance sounds great, but how to establish it? Just because digital detoxing creates space to be bored, isn’t it easier find other tasks to do?
Yes, if indeed boredom is such an unpleasant sensation. Try and fully embrace the feeling. Is it as bad as you make it out to be? “If an experience such as boredom is fully embraced, it may no longer be boring per se.” [24] If you find out you can’t bear being bored, another idea is to think of boredom as meditation. “Zen has something to say about boredom. Its main practice of ‘just sitting’ has got to be the world’s most boring activity.” [25] Much research shows that meditation is important for wellness, “from alleviating mental illness to helping people function better at work.” [26] For more detailed benefits of meditation, see our article Breathe Slow, Stay Calm, Live Long. Besides boring sensations dissipating as you shift attention to your breath or posture, you reap the same benefits of meditation by framing boredom in this way. “Buddhist theory holds that if one can tolerate and push on through this boredom and discomfort, one is able to gain vital insights into one’s mind and self-identity.” [27]
CONCLUSION
Handling boredom is thus potentially transformative and empowering. Whether practicing meditation or practicing boredom, what you can do is
- Choose internal mind-wandering over external stimulation
- Become more attuned to your passions and switch activities based on how intensely bored you are and for how long
- Balance over-stimulating activities with more reflective down time
Keep in mind, though, that boredom also has drawbacks. Meditating can’t implement your insights. You can handle the pliers of boredom when you need nuanced data about yourself. But you can take up the hammer of action when it’s time to carry out your goals and dreams.
On your wellness journey during this moment in history, pliers and hammers are great tools to carry with you. They are more powerful together than either alone. But it’s up to you to use them.
REFERENCES
[1] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. P. 4.
[2] Beckett, Samuel. Waiting for Godot. London: Faber & Faber, 2019.
[3] Kierkegaard, S. (1987). Either/Or, Part I. (Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong) Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
[4] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. P. 4.
[5] Vogel-Walcutt, Jennifer & Fiorella, Logan & Carper, Teresa & Schatz, Sae. (2012). The Definition, Assessment, and Mitigation of State Boredom Within Educational Settings: A Comprehensive Review. Educational Psychology Review. 24. 89–111. 10.1007/s10648–011–9182–7. P. 90.
[6] Fisher, Cynthia. (1993). Boredom at Work: A Neglected Concept. School of Business Discussion Papers. 46. 10.1177/001872679304600305. P. 3.
[7] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. P. 8.
[8] Ibid., P. 5.
[9] Mann, Sandi and Cadman, Rebekah (2014) Does Being Bored Make us More Creative? Creativity Research journal, 26 (2). Pp. 165–173. P. 165.
[10] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. p. 5.
[11] Elpidorou, Andreas. (2017). The Good of Boredom. Philosophical Psychology. 10.1080/09515089.2017.1346240. P. 8.
[12] Van Tilburg, Wijnand A. P. 2011. Boredom and Its Psychological Consequences: A Meaning Regulation Approach. Thesis. Republic Of Irland: University Of Limerick. P. 204.
[13] Andreas Elpidorou (2017): The good of boredom, Philosophical Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/09515089.2017.1346240 P. 12.
[14] Reginster, Bernard (2007) “Nietzsche’s New Happiness: Longing, Boredom, and the Elusiveness of Fulfillment,” Philosophic Exchange: Vol. 37 : №1 , Article 2. P. 17.
[15] .Nietzsche, FriedRich. On the Genealogy of Morals. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2007 P. 26.
[16] Nietzsche, Friedrich, and Walter Arnold. Kaufmann. The Will to Power: a New Transl. New York: Vintage Books, 1968. P. 370.
[17] Nietzsche, FriedRich. The Gay Science. Edited by Keith Ansell-Pearson. Translated by Carol Diethe. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2001 pp. 246–247.
[18] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. P. 1.
[19] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. P. 6.
[20] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. (1990). Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. P. 5.
[21] Ibid., P. 7.
[22] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. p. 6.
[23] Ibid., P. 7.
[24] Ibid., P. 20.
[25] Pirsig, Robert M. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: an Inquiry into Values. London: Vintage Books, 2014. P. 144.
[26] Lomas, Tim. (2016). A meditation on boredom: Re-appraising its value through introspective phenomenology. Qualitative Research in Psychology. 10.1080/14780887.2016.1205695. p. 7.
[27] Ibid., p. 9.
