How to be Bored in Anti-Boredom Culture (so that you can live a more meaningful life)
- Violeta Puente-Duran
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 2 days ago
I don't know about you, but I hate feeling bored. So much so that I try to avoid it at all costs, something so easy to do today in day.
Pull out your phone and keep yourself busy! Scroll scroll scroll! Don't you dare let your brain have nothing to do!
Let me tell you about one of my most recent boredom experiences.
We were at an art gallery. The first exhibit we looked at was a multi-media piece which included an eight minute plus video of a camera moving slowly through a dark tunnel. So very slooooowly. I was dying. The boredom was painful. I could’ve gotten up and moved onto the next piece, but I forced myself to sit through the video. I forced myself to, not just feel the boredom, but appreciate the slowness- and the art- of the video.
When you’re bored, my husband whispered as we watched, you start to pay attention to subtle details.Â
Sounded like advice on how to live in the present moment.
I took a few deep breaths into my belly to allow the knots of boredom and discomfort to loosen up, as I scanned the video for signs of new detail.
The boredom shortage
As I sat there staring at the tunnel, in the midst of my boredom, I had an epiphany. And that is, I don't have enough boredom in my life. I could hear my intuition telling me I need more of it, and that it's good for me, despite hating it.
I also realized that boredom isn't always very accessible.
If you think about it, with all the stimulation around us, how many opportunities to feel bored do you really have in a day? And having a boring job doesn't count.
Probably not many. And that's because, along with attention, there's a boredom shortage.
Anti-boredom culture is boring
We live in an anti-boredom culture that praises productivity and having endless things to do. A jam-packed schedule. Not a second in the day to feel bored. And if you do often feel bored, or have many moments of peace and quiet, you must be lazy!
There definitely was NOT a shortage of boredom when I was a kid and young adult. TV had limited channels, and even after we had cable there were still times of the day where there was "nothing to watch", but I would often force myself to watch whatever was on, like when I was home with a cold, as did many Gen Xers and Millennials.
The concept of having endless things to watch was non-existent. If I turn on Netflix without a specific show in mind, I'll never decide on anything. The more options we have, the less satisfied we feel with our decisions. This is known as the "paradox of choice"(1). I call it the "paradox of entertainment". The more choices, the more bored I feel.
Perhaps endless entertainment isn't the antidote to boredom.
The Digital Era and Boredom
The digital era seems perfect for easily bored brains, like my own. The endless scroll, the googling of things whenever, wherever, for whatever, the instant information, the reel after reel, the podcasts, the dopamine rush from the hundreds of daily notifications.Â
Yet, it feels empty...
...unsatisfying...
...and it doesn't feel right.
We try so hard to avoid boredom, but somehow, this feels worse.
Boredom can't be so bad then, can it?
Boredom is good for you
It's actually good to feel bored sometimes.
Some suggested benefits of boredom include:
improves social connections (2)
helps foster creative ideas (2)
helps recharge the brain so that it can be more productive (3)
increases self-awareness and introspection (3)
may help you reassess your goals and values (3)
greater appreciation for things, especially the less "entertaining" things in life (me)
helps you feel less bored in the long run (i.e. the more bored you allow yourself to be, the less you will perceive those moments as boring- it's like exercising a muscle) (me)
Put your phone away!
So, I didn't write this blog article to state the obvious, or maybe I did. Regardless, the simplest way to allow more boredom into your life is to put your phone away. Challenge yourself. Resist the temptation to check your phone, like when you're...
waiting in line
waiting for a friend
waiting at an appointment
waiting for the bus
waiting in any situation
We all hate to wait. And I challenge you to begin appreciating waiting moments. Exercise your patience muscle. Feeling calm and zen while you wait is so much better for your health than stressing, feeling frustrated, or numbing your boredom with a screen. Observe the environment around you. Appreciate your upright posture as others slouch over to stare at their phones. Roll your shoulders forward, backwards, take a deep breath. Consider it a meditation practice. I promise to do the same!
Embrace boredom and live a more meaningful life
I'm not trying to say that you should ditch seeking pleasure and trade it in for boredom. I'm simply suggesting that you don't need to run away from boredom.
What if allowing yourself to feel bored more often actually helped you create a more meaningful life?
Food for thought.
This article is almost as much as about the hyperstimulation toxicity of the digital era, as it is about boredom.
Boredom is subjective, obviously. While seconds felt like minutes for me during the dark tunnel video, my husband was fully engaged.
"Boredom is not an absence of things to do, it is the struggle to find value in any of the options given to you", as quoted in a Guardian article Why it's good to be bored (4).
The more you allow yourself to feel bored, the less you will perceive certain moments as boring.
To conclude, I encourage you to embrace more moments of boredom, use them as opportunities to reflect, question, and observe the outside, as well as your internal, world.
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