I’ve been thinking about boredom a lot lately. Not because I’m bored. The opposite is actually the case. I wish I had more hours in the day and weeks in the month to do even a fraction of the things I think up.
Ah, imagination and motivation. Do you have it? Have you lost it? How can you regain it?
It seems to me if you’re bored chances are it’s not the problem of nothing interesting in the world for you. Maybe being bored actually means you’re boring. Let me put it another way.
Cultural Conditioning
Western culture is driven by entertainment. Perhaps you’ve been conditioned to rely on an external source to give you meaning or purpose or enjoyment. And if you don’t have this stimulus, well, stimulating you 24/7, you get bored. Why? I think it has a lot to do with lack or loss of imagination and laziness. We want someone else to tell us what to do and what to like and what to be passionate about. We’ve lost our sense of identity and personal drive.
I would need five lifetimes to do half of the things I’d like to do and they’re just the ones that cost little or no money. So, lack of money can’t be an excuse for boredom. The world is so full of so many things that can be done for next to or nothing at all. But these are the simple things in life and simple has become synonymous with boring. Just as, say, cooking has become synonymous with drudgery, so those things that take a little imagination or are commonplace are looked on as uninteresting.
Resurrect Your Inner Child
At the risk of sounding cliche, unplug. Get away from media and media devices for even brief periods. It will allow your brain to rest and actually start thinking creatively again. I say again because at one time, when you were a small child, you had a very vivid imagination and an insatiable hunger for knowledge. You wanted to know how everything worked and you wanted to be a part of everything that was happening around you. You also had dreams and visions of what you wanted to do with life, what really caught your attention. Our modern existence has a way of sucking the life out of our dreams and passions or making us forget them altogether.
New found passion: animal track identification…I loved doing this as a kid.
Get Outside
Research has proven exposure to nature has a restorative effect on your mind. Involuntary concentration or Soft Fascination as it’s been termed, has four aspects:
- Distance from routine and concentrated focus
- Something to hold our attention effortlessly
- Immersion in the distraction
- A desirable setting where our minds can relax
Nature offers us all four aspects. The rejuvenation that comes from contact with nature stirs the imagination and gets the creative juices flowing. It allows you to contemplate on things in a way that focused concentration cannot. Maybe this will also help ignite that dormant passion from your childhood.
Birds of a Feather
Surround yourself (or at the very least read about) motivated, passionate people. There’s nothing like someone who’s passionate about life to inspire, maybe even make you jealous if that’s what it takes. Living the life you dreamed of, following your passions and leaving boredom behind is not for the select few. You were made to live a life of abundance and joy.
Find your passion and follow it.
Go explore the world and all it has to offer. Find out what motivates you and inspires. Follow your passion, live your dream. And if it seems impossible, find thrill in the adventure of trying. You’ll only regret it if you never go out and try it.
Back to my roots
My Agrarian Life 