Life is Boring

I sit at my cubicle working on Excel spreadsheets most of the day. On occasion, I’ll run into a problem, whether it’s formatting, creating a new formula, etc. I can sit at that computer screen focused for an hour and still not know how to solve that issue. The crazy part is, nine times out of ten, I’ll get up and roam the hallways, and like magic, the answer comes to me. How does this happen?

In today’s modern world, it seems that we always need to fill our minds with distractions like listening to music, podcasts, or TV. We absolutely cannot be bored, otherwise we may miss out on useless entertainment the world has to offer. Then we wonder why we aren’t happy. One reason may be that we never allow ourselves to be bored.

When we become bored, our brain switches into what’s called the “Default Mode Network,” which allows us to wander, reflect, or daydream. This leads to deeper questions, which makes us uncomfortable, so we have to shut it down as quickly as possible. As a result, we rarely give ourselves the time to figure out what we actually want or how to improve our lives.

If you look at some of our historical figures, you’ll notice how young they were when they accomplished some of the most meaningful contributions to society. For example:

Isaac Newton — in his twenties, he spent time at home during the plague with not much to do but think and developed ideas for calculus and gravity

Albert Einstein — at 26, he had uninterrupted time in a patent office job. This allowed him to think deeply, leading to his breakthrough Annus Mirabilis papers in 1905, setting the foundation of modern physics

Mary Shelley — wrote Frankenstein at 18 during a rainy, isolated summer with little to do but read and imagine

This is not to say that you have to be young to have major contributions to society. Instead, it highlights that historical figures didn’t have access to social media and TV. They only had studies, socializing and debauchery, working, or more importantly, thinking. The commonality among the greats was allowing boredom to create the conditions to think deeply. A lack of distraction helped lead them to breakthroughs.

Merriam-Webster defines boredom as “an emotional state characterized by weariness, restlessness, and a lack of interest or stimulation... It can act as a catalyst for creativity or signal a need for change.”

The last part of the definition is key. How can one advance in life without boredom? One must reflect on their tasks, day, accomplishments, etc. to understand how to advance. It’s what one does with that reflection that can lead to a good or bad outcome.

On the downside, boredom can lead to depression and anxiety. I’m a subject of this. I get bored and start thinking of all the things I haven’t done that day or haven’t accomplished in life. This can easily lead to a bad mood, which devolves into wanting to escape with a drink and any social media or Netflix distraction I can find just to stop the thinking. Others may have it worse; maybe they escape with 10 drinks, binge eating, drugs, anything to not think about their failures.

In fact, people will do anything to not be bored. In a fascinating study, people were allowed to sit there with their thoughts or shock themselves to escape the boredom. Sixty-seven percent of men and twenty-five percent of women preferred to shock themselves rather than be bored (Wilson et al., 2014). How many of you would choose the shock?

On the upside, boredom thinking leads to creativity, innovation, or simple new ideas. This helps one discover who they are and who they could become. For example, I never dreamt of writing a book. I hated English class and couldn’t stand the idea of writing some boring prompt a teacher gave. Perhaps I did like writing; I just didn’t give myself time to contemplate better ways to fit my life and thoughts into what I was writing at the time.

That lesson came to fruition while listening to a podcast one day. The real estate mogul, Grant Cardone, asked the question, “If you had to write a book right now, what would it be?” Over the coming weeks, the question stuck with me, and when I was bored, it was all I could think about. I was forced to contemplate my interests and even problems I had with the world and how it could change for the positive. This led to me writing a children’s finance series, Garrett’s Ventures. A year later, I am still thinking about how to improve and grow it. That same boredom has pushed me to consider new ideas, like creating a study guide to help kids reflect on what they learn. It’s a circle of life: bored → think → create → bored → think → create.

All this is to say, you should give yourself the chance to be bored. Boredom creates the space for thinking, and thinking creates direction. You’ll have your most interesting ideas after you push past surface-level thoughts. Here are some ideas to be more bored and allow time to think:

·       Drive without the radio for 15 minutes

·       No phone during alone time tasks such as workouts, cleaning, etc.

·       No screens during morning and nighttime routines

Here’s a bonus for the folks that need extra creativity through controlled boredom. You may have heard of lucid dreaming, where you are asleep in a dream but have total control of the dream. This can lead to deeper creativity or practice of ideas. Sounds great, but most of us can’t do this on command.

The lower level that we all have access to is what’s called the hypnagogic state. The hypnagogic state is when you are about to fall asleep and your mind starts racing with ideas. Maybe someone nudges you or a sound wakes you up and you remember all those ideas you just raced through. Thomas Edison famously used this to find inspiration in his inventions. He would sit in a chair holding metal balls. As he relaxed and fell asleep, the balls would fall out of his hand and wake him up. He’d be able to easily recall whatever thoughts he had.

So what is happening when you step away from your desk and suddenly find the answer to your problem? It is the shift from focused thinking to what is known as diffuse thinking. When you stop forcing a solution and give your mind space, it begins to make connections in the background. We must shut the phone or TV off to stop focusing on distractions and let our minds diffuse from the immediate. I challenge you to allow yourself this daily, and you may just figure out what you were meant to be and what you want to do in this life.