Anxiety is probably the most common presenting issue among my client base.
Sure enough, as her anxiety lessened, boredom did start to make its presence felt in her life.
However, over time, my client came to embrace this new state.
She labeled it “a privilege” and a sign that anxiety had released its stranglehold over her life.
Interestingly, when she stopped reacting to and judging her boredom, it started to ease.
Different things came to occupy the void previously occupied by her anxiety and fear.
She started writing and engaging in creative pursuits again.
For this client, boredom was the vacuum left by her anxiety.
Perhaps her case is not that unusual.
Boredom and anxiety are curious bedfellows.
On the surface, they have little in common.
The former suggests disengagement, a lack of arousal.
But both are uncomfortable states for many of us.
My client’s attitude toward boredom taught me a lot.
It led me to reflect upon the taboo around boredom.
Broadly speaking, it’s not perceived as a particularly adult emotion.
In spite of this, a recent Gallup poll found that 70 percent of Americans find their work boring.
Much consumer marketing, advertising, and product development is designed to address boredom.
Some advertising explicitly pitches to bored consumers.
People will go to great lengths to escape boredom.
Many of us would rather feel pain or discomfort than nothing at all.
), two-thirds of men pressed a button in the knowledge that it would deliver a painful jolt.
One man found being left alone in his own company so disagreeable he opted to be shocked 190 times.
Under the same conditions, a quarter of women pressed the shock button.
I was looking for a solution to this dilemma, something to do, some entertainment.
Our smartphones are the ultimate one-stop boredom reliever.
No wonder we cannot put them down.
Boredom and addiction.
“The truth is, many people fall into drug and alcohol addiction because of boredom.
It’s something to do.”
I read this on the website of Raleigh House, a rehab center in Colorado, recently.
I believe the same principle applies to our smartphone addictions.
Being constantly on our phones keeps boredom at bay.
Several key features of our smartphones can be very magnetic to the bored mind.
Take, for instance, messaging (including texting, WhatsApp, Telegram, etc.
), which remains the most popular smartphone function.
We expect replies more quickly than ever before.
When email was introduced, traditional mail was dubbed “snail mail.”
Now email has been consigned to the same category.
But texting taps into what Schull dubs the “ludic loop” of the slot-machine experience.
The human brain produces more dopamine when it anticipates a reward but doesn’t know when it will arrive.
Most of the alluring apps and websites in wide use today were engineered to exploit this habit-forming loop.
Boredom and meaninglessness.
Frankl was imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp for one and a half years.
“Distressing” seems a gross understatement to describe what he lived through.
His experience of transcending the conditions of Dachau would certainly attest to this.
despondency that is the breeding ground for boredom and also addiction.
That was certainly my experience.
I was making just enough effort to keep my slate clean and my boss off my back.
I felt stuck but lacked the energy required to make the jump to something else.
I had my epiphany moment in the middle of a conference on some hard-core technology in Washington.
The fact that I didn’t understand what was being discussed was the least of my worries.
I felt I was in the wrong place.
I had no business being there.
This was 15 years ago, well before the iPhone hit Apple store shelves.
Do something, do anything, but don’t do this!"
Listen to your boredomit might have something to tell you.
When I work with boredom, I take a similar approach as when addressing anxiety.
In short, that we’ve stalled and have become stuck, like I was at the tech conference.
Ask yourself, what is boredom trying to tell you?
Mine was like a hacked, belligerent GPS shouting, “Stop!
This is a dead end.
Turn around and go back.
Find another route!”
Listening to that voice formed the first step in embarking on a career that I find very fulfilling.
Embrace the void.
This is a good place to be.
Reprinted with permission of Ulysses Press.
