I hope you are bored by the end of this article....
A few years back, my friend Mo and I got "stranded" in the wilderness.
Despite what seemed like forever, I'd say we spent less than 30 minutes waiting for our "rescue."
Just a few hours earlier a group of four of us landed in Montana for what was all of our first times in the State. As soon as we cleared the airport we b-lined straight for the off-roading trip that was first up on our to do list.
Long story short, at some point during the trip, our vehicle broke down, and since we were at the tail end of the group, the rest of the group drove off without realizing we were no longer with them. With limited visibility and absolutely no way to verbally communicate, there was nothing we could do to notify the others that we stopped. We watched them ride off into the distance.
Deductive reasoning says that at some point, the guys will not only realize that we have been left behind, but will also turn around and double back on the path they had just traversed. So all we could do was wait... but there was a lingering uncertainty about if and when the group will notice that we've dropped off, and whether or not they would actually turn around - an unlikely scenario, but no way to verify.
So there we were, With no cell service, with no comprehension of where we were, and with no definite timeline of how long we would be waiting, my friend Mo and I just sat there in the Montana wilderness.
Luckily our rescue party showed up sooner rather than later.
That experience, as mild as it was, reminded me of Michael Easter's book "Comfort Crisis" where he chronicles his experience being dropped off by plane in the remote Alaskan wilderness hundreds of miles away from the nearest inkling of civilization. It was at that moment, watching the plane take off and then experiencing the deafening silence of true isolation, that Easter experienced his first taste of real and unrelenting boredom.
You may have heard me talk about the importance of discomfort in the past. The premise is that discomfort is an undeniable pre-requisite for growth because it conditions mind and body to build the endurance and fortitude necessary to navigate through life's inevitable challenges. Those who learn to become comfortable with the uncomfortable, have a greater ability to delay gratification, which is an ability that is linked to more favorable life outcomes than the impulsivity that typically occurs as a reaction to uncomfortable situations.
The discomfort of speaking in front of a crowd makes a person a better public speaker. The discomfort of speaking a broken form of a foreign language must precede the joy of becoming fluent in that language. The discomfort of lifting heavy weights makes a person grow bigger muscles.
There are many different ways to make one's self uncomfortable, from cold exposure to resistance training, to committing to a life of poverty and austerity as many monks do. However, I believe that one of the most overlooked forms of discomfort (and opportunities for personal growth) is boredom.
Boredom is an extraordinarily uncomfortable experience
It's so uncomfortable that multi-trillion dollar industries have been built because the demand for finding solutions to alleviate the pain of boredom is insatiable.
Social media, internet, TV and movies, drugs and alcohol, music, food, and so many more are all used to fill time that would otherwise be spent experiencing the misery of having "nothing to do."
In recent years, boredom has seemingly been eradicated. When I was younger, I remember countless days of being bored. I remember having nothing to do on the 18hr road trips from Virginia to Louisiana to see family, so I would read the world-atlas front to back, or look at the roadmap (an actual physical roadmap) and track our movements by geolocating what I could physically see with the landmarks denoted on the map.
The result is that at a relatively young age I developed what some my call an very healthy0 command of topics like geography, of geology, weather, culture, and all of the other things that you'd find in an atlas.
But today I do not experience anything close to the level of boredom that I experienced when I was younger in the pre-internet and pre-social media days. If I'm on a road trip or on a long flight, I've got a plethora of things that I can turn to, to keep my mind occupied.
Another way of putting it is that our modern society has made sufficiently abundant sources of distraction available to us to the point that boredom is just not a part of the human experience in the same way that it has been for basically all of human history.
But herein lies the problem
The human brain was never intended to receive an endless stream of entertainment or dopaminergic stimuli that we use as a safety net to avoid falling into the pits of boredom.
Boredom is a built-in feature of the human experience rather than a bug that needs to be fixed. It is a necessary thing that serves as a counterbalance to moments of excitement and engagement.
The stimulated mind must co-exist with the unstimulated mind. They are the equivalent to yin and yang, to light and darkness, to joy and sadness, to matter and anti-matter. If one exists in excess compared to the other, then they are out of balance... it breaks a fundamental law of nature regarding conservation and equilibrium. When this happens, chaos ensues.
Discomfort is an action that induces an equal and opposite reaction.
Boredom, like any other form of discomfort, induces an equal and opposite reaction. When channeled correctly, boredom serves as a positive catalyst for action that elevates our minds to a place that gives us the fuel and motivation we need to push us over the top in whatever big life challenge we are trying to overcome.
The steady input of external stimuli leaves us with little time to actually be with ourselves. We lose the opportunity to tap deep into our subconscious minds. We deprive ourselves of the much needed time for introspection which helps to keep us centered and level-headed.
There are actually many benefits to shutting off the world around you and giving your mind some down time. To name a few, it:
Gives the mind space to wonder, boosting creativity and intellectual curiosity
Resets the hedonic treadmill, improving mental health and the ability to experience feelings of gratitude and joy
Takes people out of survival mode, increasing levels of consciousness and self-awareness
In all it is a restorative action that opens the mind to search for novel ideas and to work through new solutions to old problems.
What are the components of boredom?
I've broken my idea of boredom down into what I call the "Three S'"
Silence - the background of all thought
Solitude - the catalyst for introspection
Sensory Deprivation - the foundation for dopamine reset
As I alluded to earlier, there are many ways that we can intentionally introduce boredom into our lives to our benefit.
I have recently began incorporating a "day of boredom" into my weekly routine; that is, one day a week free of entertainment or other dopaminergic stimuli... A day free of escapisms, committed to being present in my own thoughts.
For me, this means a day of solitude, silence, and sensory deprivation.... Many of the things that I am prone to doing to keep myself entertained, I try not to do them during this day.
A really important element of this includes a "no technology" policy.
Technically, any tools that we use is considered technology, so what I mean by this is I do not use anything that lies outside of the three previously established components of boredom.
This means all or most of the day with no music, no instant messaging, no email, no TV, no streaming or social media, no internet, no games, etc.
I do however allow myself space to use a computer for writing, studying, and doing other things that are very specific to my growth and development. Meaning, these are not the dopamine spiking activities one would typically use technology for, rather they are the opposite. They require that I bring a present and focused mind to engage in those activities.
I highly recommend that you also find ways to have a no technology day. You can create your own rules around it just like I do for mine.
Your rules must align with your lifestyle. If you're married with kids and you have to be on call for work, then you'll need to do it a bit differently than I do. But either way the goal is to create space for some REAL downtime in your weekly schedule.
In addition to no technology you may also want to consider other restrictions that align with the Three S'.. these are things like no alcohol, over-socializing, retail therapy, etc.
Whatever you do, just realize that in today's hyper-stimulated world, it's important to take time to be bored.
Give your mind time and space to be present without distraction from the outside world. Elevate yourself not only to a higher state of self-consciousness and creative thought, but also build your tolerance for delayed gratification.
Be more intentional by embracing the power of boredom.