Bored? Look for meanings when bored.
Boredom involves a loss of energy, interest, and momentum. It may be temporary or chronic.
Boredom is cured when you find meaning in the things you do.
The current global pandemic has locked up or restricted a lot of people.
Boredom is one of its serious side effects. A depletion of energy. A lack of excitement.
This morning, I’ve read of the latest global stats on mental health of millions of people affected by Covid.
It includes pathological boredom, which leads to depression and suicide for some. In others, fireworks of madness.
A long-term corporate employee who lost her job during the pandemic reports:
“I’m like a zombie here in the house. I feel cut off. I’m so bored and depressed, no energy to apply for a new job or do anything. How can I escape this condition?”
Boredom. It’s like a prison wall growing closer.
Soren Kierkegaard once said that boredom is a kind of evil.
It’s a void that’s frequently filled with addictions, excesses, and self sabotage.
However, Kierkegaard was the first to recognize two sides of boredom: its motivating nature and its destructive nature.
For Arnold, a psychotherapy patient, work in the office is routine and predictable. Endless repetition. Stimulation is minimal.
So after work, he seeks thrill, consumerism, and drugs. He eventually experiences health and family problems out of it.
In therapy, he describes his boring life. Yet at the same time his seeping boredom motivates him to some positive action.
Psychotherapist and author Dr. Jeffrey Kottler, quoting Keen, writes,
“While we are bored there is time ‘to strip away our character armor, shed layer after layer of imposed motivations and values, and circle closer to our unique essence.’ “
Boredom is essentially a collapse of meaning. So it’s less a medical condition than a mental state of how one views the world.
Remember, look for meanings when bored.
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