Throughout much of my life I have been exposed to people who complain of boredom. “There’s nothing to do,” they say. Sounds like a terrible dilemma, I guess, but luckily for me I have very rarely found myself bored, and it is not often that I cannot find something to do.
What causes boredom? To those who are bored the question may seem ridiculous, but answering it is the best way to alleviate the problem. Bertrand Russell wrote in The Conquest of Happiness, “Boredom as a factor in human behavior has received, in my opinion, far less attention than it deserves.”
Simply put, boredom is a result of narrow interests. A person who only enjoys herself while dancing with a partner will soon become bored because dancing cannot be carried on at all times. A person who’s only interest is collecting baseball cards will soon find that the endeavor becomes stale when his collection reaches a peak.
People who have a wide range of interests seldom become bored. A person who tires of reading can take a break from that activity and play some sports or take a walk and watch birds. A reader who doesn’t like sports or bird watching will get frustrated when reading become tiresome. Of course, sports and nature are not mentioned as an exclusive list, just as examples. A person could turn to drawing or painting, writing, listening to music, and talking to a friend. Doing creative and constructive activities are the best ways to cure the cold of boredom.
One human endeavor that receives far too little place in the lives of people is thinking. Everyone thinks naturally and incessantly, but most of our thoughts are haphazard and unfocussed. If a person finds very little outward activities to attract interest, there is always recourse to thought. Playing around inside the head, if not taken to an exclusively unhealthy extreme, affords great satisfaction in that a person can become totally free of the confines of the actual world. Often thinking can lead a person to some impulse towards activity.
The best vaccination for boredom is the cultivation of a wide range of interests. Parents should do their best in nurturing the interests of children. When a child complains of boredom, a good thing to do is hand them some paper and a pencil and tell them to draw or create something. Tell them to make up a game, or write a story. Encourage children to look for interesting things. This is a big world with a lot of intriguing people and places and things. It’s a shame that so many people spend a lot of their time in this world unable to appreciate what life has to offer.
