No beating around the bush, no dancing around the issue. This is the money content: BOREDOM IS A MINDSET. With a slight adjustment in your tolerance for boredom, with a vision of what excites / interests you and what you value, and with a few simple preventative measures and habits, anyone can stave off the dreaded curse of boredom.
Boredom is defined as: "an emotional state experienced during periods lacking activity or when individuals are uninterested in the activities presented to them."
My question is: How can we basically ensure that boredom is not part of our experience anymore? I'm not talking about less boredom, I'm talking about virtually no boredom.
It sure seems hard when you're stuck in a line at the bank, or at the doctor's office, or a traffic jam. But its possible more than possible!
Here I'll break boredom prevention down into 5 components. When applied, these can make most any situation in life not only bearable, but enjoyable and useful for personal growth:
1) Understand what You Value and what Engages You -
Boredom implies not being engaged, it implies seeing no compelling reason to act or think - it implies the belief that if the world does not spoon feed us something fun for our brains, then we will necessarily suffer from boredom. You must understand what does in fact engage you. Do you like to learn about physics, gardening, psychology? Do you enjoy socializing with new people? Do you like playing chess? The key here is to understand a) what you learn from and can immerse yourself in, and b) what you enjoy doing - then figure out ways to bring that into your life. This could be scheduling in what is most enjoyable in your week. Leading into the next point, it could also involve relating what you're doing now to what you value in life.
2) Change Your Perspective -
Before we mentioned that it is maladaptive to believe that if the world does provide our brains with fun, we will be subject to boredom. Why is this maladaptive? Mainly, because it is false. Why is it false? Because we can change our perspective. Instead of labeling a situation as uninteresting, how about tuning your mind to find what IS interesting, what IS engaging, what you COULD do to make the most of the situation. We should always seek to find ways to maximize our moments, to find something to draw from them - be it warm human contact, deleting old numbers from your phone, updating your calendar, etc... We can find something to learn, something worthwhile to do and engage ourselves with. How about we instal a new belief that we will live in alignment with what we value every second, not just when the outside world seems to give us nice things to explore with our minds. Stuck in a long line? What do you value, what do you live for, what could you make from this situation? Meet someone, do some visualization of a future task... the focus is always yours to control!
3) Change Your Language -
Language has a massive effect on our perspectives and our mindset. One bit of advice that will instantly benefit you in eradicating boredom is eradicating "bored" or "boring" from your common lexicon immediately. There is little reason to use these words. Saying that you are "bored" implies that you do not have the will to change your perspective and stay engaged / enjoying your situation - to draw something from your situation. Saying that something or someone is "boring" implies that it is an innate quality within that person, place, or thing. This is the opposite of the truth. So, as you change your perception of your interest in what is around you, you can also shift your vocabulary to make the world more interesting.
4) Change Your Body -
What if I told you to imitate a "bored" person, or an "uninterested" person... would you be able to do so very easily? Maybe you would slump over a little, stare off into space with half-opened, and look frustrated and discontent. Bam, you know what it looks like. What do YOU look like when you're bored? I'll bet its exactly as you described it. In addition to changing your inside, change your outside. Sit up strait, open your eyes, find things to engage yourself with in an alert and enthusiastic way. Just moving and acting like this will put you in a state of alertness, it will give you access to the resource of alertness. This is what your body moves and feels like when you really are engaged, so your brain will take you to that state more easily.
5) Be Prepared -
I think this is where things get really fun. Inevitably you'll enter situations where the amount of engaging / fun activities given by the environment seems minimal. This might be a lecture, a long drive, etc... For long car rides, I like to have on some audio programs, or enjoyable / thought provoking music. For a doctor's office, I like to bring in an iPod (again with audio programs) or an interesting book I'm working on (usually psychology or philosophy related). If its a meeting that you anticipate will not be very productive, plan some important issues to bring up, or focus on setting up an appointment with someone in the meeting you want to speak with, etc...
As a final tip: If you ever find yourself feeling bored, record the event or situation when you go home that night, and use these steps above to understand how you could change the situation to something meaningful the next time you're in a similar scenario.
Follow these basic guidelines and avoid boredom altogether. Seriously! I cannot promise you advice to keep you from ever experiencing loneliness, or sadness, or regret - but I can say that by abiding by these basic ideas you can bypass boredom as an experience.
Boredom's algorithm seems to be so much easier than those other emotional experiences (it would take too much time to dive into them all now, haha, believe me!). I don't consider myself different than most, and I can tell you right now that I have not been genuinely bored in about two years - since I caught onto this.
Take these ideas and run with them, constantly look to engage actively with your life and towards your ideals - and "being bored" doesn't ever have to happen again!
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