Have you ever had a day off and struggled to find things to fill it? I recently read the results of a study that suggested that boredom could be a risk factor for premature death.
Personally, I tend to become extremely interested in an activity for a while and to really immerse myself in it. Then, my interest wanes and I go back to complaining that I have nothing to do. That's not really living, is it?
I'm off of work for the President's Day holiday today. I worked out this morning and spent a couple of hours this afternoon shopping with my sisters for a surprise birthday party we're planning for my mother. I returned home around 2:30 pm and stared at my computer screen blankly for some time, wondering what I should do with the rest of my afternoon. I thought about taking a nap -- oh, how I love naps -- but thought that would be a dreadful waste of time, especially since I wasn't tired. I realized I hadn't practiced drawing in a while, something I've never been good at but one of the things I was briefly passionate about before my interest waned. So I found my art pencils, pulled out an art book that has been used only to decorate my coffee table for the past year, and drew for a while.
The point to this little story? Well, I wonder if anyone else has ever had time on their hands and found that they were completely bored and unable to find a way to entertain themselves. The thing is, it doesn't matter what you do to entertain yourself. It just matters that you DO SOMETHING! If you do nothing or if you sit around waiting for something to happen you must ask yourself -- am I really living life?
Might be interesting to do nothing. See what comes up. I've found that this is a good time for meditation because you want to check out of life, distract yourself, anything but face the fact that you're where you are with nothing to do.
ReplyDeleteGetting bored after some time is highly natural. I beleive the trick is to find new interesting things. There are so much interesting new things to try!
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I hate the idea of looking to be occupied because it is healthier. If we want to find interesting and fun things, so be it. But why should it feel like a job.
Besides, doing nothing is a natural state in life, and we may even enjoy it.
I hope to follow my own advice. (I am now working of learning to be strong. further lessons follow.....)
This remainds me Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's book, 'Flow'.Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is doing by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity. Proposed by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the positive psychology concept has been widely referenced across a variety of fields.
ReplyDeleteAccording to Csíkszentmihályi, flow is completely focused motivation. It is a single-minded immersion and represents perhaps the ultimate in harnessing the emotions in the service of performing and learning. In flow the emotions are not just contained and channeled, but positive, energized, and aligned with the task at hand. To be caught in the ennui of depression or the agitation of anxiety is to be barred from flow. The hallmark of flow is a feeling of spontaneous joy, even rapture, while performing a task.