Being Bored On Purpose

I can’t remember whether it was a YouTube video or an article. All I know is that whatever it was (probably a video since I have been on a bit of an advice/self improvement kick lately), the premise of the material really stuck with me.

We suck at being bored.

What does that mean? I think it can mean many things to different people. Sitting through a lecture in which the subject matter does not interest you? Boring. Being forced to wait at the DMV while they slowly go through the process of telling you that you don’t have the documents you need after waiting for 2 hours? Boring (and frustrating). Sitting in a jail cell? Boring.

Boring and being bored can come in many forms. But in this video, pretty sure it was a video, they were talking about something very specific, and it got me thinking about my own relationship with “being bored”.

Being “bored” nowadays is a concept that can be as simple as not engaging with one’s phone in any way. As I have written about many times before, the supercomputers in our pockets are exceptional machines. But they are also designed to be addicting and tend to cause more anxiety than promote joy depending on your apps and notifications.

As a result, I have been on a never ending quest to make my phone as “boring” as possible. I don’t get any social media notifications to my lock screen. I absolutely don’t have any news apps on my phone. My phone used to vibrate for some notifications but now I keep it completely silent. It’s not been reduced to strictly calls and messages, but you’d be surprised what a few simple steps can do that I just mentioned when it comes to making sure that supercomputer in your pocket remains more of a companion than an attention seeker.

It goes beyond just the screen time though when it comes to being “bored”. Almost everyone nowadays is constantly listening to something. Podcasts, social commentary, the radio (yes people still do that), music…the “noise” we have around us and willingly put into our own ears can be an endless loop if we let it. And even enjoyable things can end up being a lot of noise at the end of the day.

Think of the last time you did something like take a walk, cook, clean, or anything of that ilk without some sort of noise being ever present in your ears. My guess is you’ll be hard pressed to pinpoint a specific time. I know from my own experiences, I was at a point where I would pretty much constantly be listening to something from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep.

I sucked at being bored.

Some of that was by design though. Sometimes, my own brain can get the best of me. I was genuinely anxious about silence. Distractions were a great way to get outside of my own head. Little inner monologues and self defeating thoughts have a more difficult time taking hold when you are constantly drowning them out. When it came down to it though, I was just suppressing these things, and they would never actually go away. In fact. I dare say it made it all a lot worse.

So, why did this material stick with me when it comes to being “bored”? I realized I was absolutely awful at it, and so were many of the people I saw around me. Constantly drowning myself in noise and distraction has not been helpful, so I figured why not try something different and see if it yields different results? After all, humans were not meant to be overly stimulated from the time they wake up to the time they sleep. Maybe there would be something to it when it comes to reverting back to the way things were, even as short as 15 or so years ago.

Here are a few things I have been doing to make myself “bored”.

1. The first thing I do in the morning is read. I go to the bathroom, fill up my water bottle, and I read. Usually I’m reading two books simultaneously, generally fiction and non fiction, but it is a wonderful way to slowly wake up the brain while also not raising stress levels. Even a short 30 minute reading session before starting my morning is incredibly helpful when it comes to calming my brain.

2. I do not touch my phone until absolutely necessary. I use my phone to sleep by turning on a history podcast, so it is not out of my room (yet). But I also intentionally do not engage with it until I have to. I may quickly check the weather but other than that, unless I see a message that might be urgent, the phone does not exist until I have satisfied my reading quota for the morning.

3. I sit in silence rather than constantly needing noise. I used to always have something making noise in the background, whether that be TV or my phone. Now, I am getting better at just sitting with silence when the time comes on occasion. While on my lap top I would be notorious for having some sort of music or podcast going, even while scrolling through social media. Now I am embracing the silence, and I can tell that my brain appreciates the calm.

4. I walk and travel without music or podcasts. Depending on the length of a trip and where I am in my day, I now find myself listening to the sounds around me rather than cutting myself off from the outside world. There’s a lot of nature where I live, so there’s plenty of interesting sounds to tune into. I have also gotten better at getting over my own obsession of feeling the need to always complete a chapter in one sitting, so I also will read a lot more when I ride the bus! (Though sometimes, headphones are needed when there is an…unfortunate distraction there potentially).

5. I do certain tasks in silence depending on the time of day and situation. I enjoy listening to music when I cook but now I find myself sometimes doing so in silence and focusing more on the craft. I’d often listen to podcasts while I ate, and now I like to do so while being comfortable with my own thoughts. Sometimes I’ll even clean in silence, something I used to always do with music.

So, what has all of this “being bored on purpose” amounted to?

1. I feel a lot less stressed. A lot of factors have also gone into this, but embracing the sound of silence has really calmed a lot of brain activity that was doing more harm than good.

2. I am less irritable. Depending on the situation I would sometimes get annoyed if my listening was interrupted. On two occasions these last few days I have dealt with people who were unwell, and quite frankly might have offended someone else with a demeanor not as calm or understanding as mine. But I wasn’t *as* annoyed as I might have been. I just tried my best to send them on their way and get back to my own space.

3. I’m reading a lot more. While I get the bulk of my reading done while folks are still asleep, I also find myself making time to read more throughout the day. I am making my way through books now and it’s been incredibly enjoyable. Thank goodness for libraries!

4. I concentrate more when I listen to something. Now, my listening habits are done with intent rather than on autopilot. There is a big difference between the passive listening many of us do just for noise and listening with intention. Even the things we enjoy mean a lot more when we treat them as genuine creations, and not just noise.

5. The pull to my phone has gone down significantly. I don’t like to miss messages from people so I would obsessively check to make sure I responded to someone immediately. That’s not healthy. It’s not even being attentive. Now I have a much better relationship with that aspect of my phone as well, which is something I wasn’t even trying to improve.

6. I am a lot more observant. People watching is a favorite past time of mine, and now I find myself doing it a lot more frequently. Sadly, I observe a lot of people staring at their phones, but it is still an observation nonetheless.

I am getting better at being “bored”. I’m interested to see what other things happen as I continue on this journey. As the world continues to try and bombard us with bad news 24/7, it’s important to find one’s own peace when you can. Sometimes it happens when we sleep, but it rarely happens when we are awake. I never thought leaning into the sound of silence would be a good thing for my own brain health, but so far I have been pleasantly surprised. I can’t wait to see what happens as I continue to explore this path of being bored on purpose.

The way I see it, the more I read and the less I look at my phone, it’s a win/win for me.

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