Recently, both Scott H. Young and Cal Newport wrote articles about boredom. But I remain unconvinced that boredom is the real problem here.
But of COURSE it is, people are bored all the time, right? Not necessarily. You see, people are bad at semantics, often mistaking one thing for another. I once read somewhere that the thirst reflex in humans is so weak, that we often mistake it for hunger. We just don’t recognize it for what it is. What if the same thing happens with our emotions? Perhaps we’re having a feeling that we can’t quite place. We know it’s there, though, and we have to call it something, so we mistakenly identify it as boredom.
Think about this. Often, when feeling “bored”, we don’t have a lot of interest in any activities suggested to cure the boredom. They’re perfectly good, fun, and interesting things to do, but in our “bored” state, they don’t seem to be the cure for what ails us. Why don’t you read a book? Play a video game? Watch TV? The truth is, if we were merely bored, these activities would pick us up again — or at least bring us back to the state of “partial boredom” that Scott H. Young described in one of the articles I linked above. We know they won’t, and there’s a reason for that. It’s because we’re not just bored.
Really, what we are is unfulfilled. We’re not just looking for an activity to occupy our time and our minds, or we would settle easily on whatever reasonably entertaining activity presented itself. We don’t reject the possibilities because they won’t cure boredom. We reject them because they won’t give us the feeling we’re really after, a feeling of fulfillment.
I used to have this problem all the time. I didn’t recognize it, mind you, but that’s what was happening. And since I didn’t recognize it, I simply thought I was bored. These days, I’m rarely bored, except for times when I am obligated to do a boring task. If I’m just at a loose end, I can usually figure out something to do that will occupy me satisfactorily. The key to curing boredom is to figure out what matters to you and pursue it. Work on things that you care about, that make you feel good as you do them, not just when they are completed. If you have personal projects that drive you, you’ll find a much greater level of fulfillment, and the “boredom” in your life will diminish proportionately.