Everyone has BOREDOM PARADOX …sooner or later

Most people view boredom through a negative lens.

It’s a state that makes people feel uneasy and restless.

But if you put a positive spin on boredom, you can leverage it to increase your joy and creativity. This is the “boredom paradox.”

With technology at our fingertips, it is easy to think we can placate boredom by mindlessly scrolling through social media.

Using your smartphone to manage boredom could leave you feeling increasingly bored and even more fatigued.

Instead, finding ways to reframe boredom will allow you to use it as a constructive tool, rather than suffer through a negative experience.

There are several simple strategies you can employ to advantageously deal with boredom when it arises.

First, reframe the situation. Commit to noticing when boredom, and any associated negative thought patterns, slip in.

By being mindful of your thoughts, you can take steps to challenge them.

If you feel bored, what can you do to change your current emotional state?

If you can see boredom as a challenge to overcome, rather than a threat, you will be able to turn it into a more positive experience.

For example, if work has become exceedingly boring, or you are going through a dry spell as a freelancer, see your quiet days as an opportunity to approach new clients, embark on an exciting project, or to undertake the online course that you now have time for.

Your life is pretty good but you feel restless.?You sense there is a far more alive and passionate life you could be living, and your keen and active mind often generates inspired ideas for that kind of life – which you don’t act upon.

Either the ideas themselves are fleeting or seemingly insubstantial –

They’re here and then they’re gone, like the light of a firefly at dusk –

Or they seem so big that you feel defeated by the sheer amount of work it would take to realize them.

?Or maybe you just don’t know where to start in bringing them to life.

And so you don’t do anything with them.?You keep living the same life you’ve been living and you feel…bored. Unfulfilled.?Underutilized.?Maybe a little cranky.

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Thank you?....No two people are alike, of course, but I’ve learned a few things about boredom after decades of helping people create deeply fulfilling lives.?

Like so much in life, boredom is a bit of a paradox:?it is both a call to change and a barrier to change.?

Boredom is a lack of interest in our present situation.

Nothing seems to be “interesting”.

We tend to think “Nothing is interesting” and “I am bored”.

Optionally, we might also be thinking “I wish I were somewhere else, doing something else”.

Three conditions are necessary for boredom.

A present situation that is not interesting

Thinking about the “not interesting”-ness

(Optionally) A future condition that may be is more interesting

A present situation that is not interesting

How do we come to realize that the present situation is not interesting?

Suppose we are at a conference. The speaker is rambling. The content is not particularly interesting. We look around and notice people are falling asleep.

Hence, after collecting this data, we reason that the speaker is boring. And we are in a boring situation. Thus, it is justifiable to feel bored.

So we feel bored. Usually, something completely different happens. Our subconscious mind decides (without reason) that our present situation is boring. We look around to find evidence to support our hypothesis.

Do you want to add a word or two?....

We notice that, while many people look interested, some people are falling asleep. While parts of the speech are original and imaginative, other parts we already know.

We think that external observations cause our internal conclusion. In fact, our internal conclusion causes our external observations.

What seems “rational” is post-rationalization. Hence, our present situation does not cause our boredom. Our boredom causes our boring present situation.?

The feeling of boredom is a call to honor your desires, which is a really good thing.

Yet it arises because you’re focused on your life as it is now, which isn’t exactly what you want it to be.

And because of the power of focus –

What we focus on is what expands in our lives –

When you’re focused on what you don’t like, you expand –

Or continue – what you don’t like. That’s the barrier.

So the feeling of boredom stimulates desire, but the focus on what bores us keeps us right where we are.

Your comments ….

Added to that is the lightning-swift tendency many people have to judge any desire they have as impractical, irresponsible, unimportant or just plain crazy, not to mention the crushing tendency to judge themselves as not having what it takes to realize their desires, anyway.

And the energy of judgment, in any form and directed toward anyone or anything, is always diminishing and depleting.?

So if you’re a teensy bit bored with your life right now, where does that leave you…besides in good company?

Most of the time, thinking is useless noise. Like many birds have a natural pecking reflex, humans have a?natural thinking reflex. We love to think about anything and everything. Usually coming to ridiculous conclusions.

Too often roles reverse. And we become a tool of our thought. As opposed to thought being a survival tool for us, we become a survival tool for thought.

Everything we think is?food?for thought. We think our actual boredom causes our thinking about boredom. In reality, our thinking causes our boredom.

We are now living in a world where getting bored is nearly impossible due to technological advances and numerous options?and?choices. But despite that, we still get bored easily like hell.

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