I kinda have a love-hate relationship with boredom. On some occasion, boredom gives out inspiring shower thoughts and flashing lightbulbs in your head but on the other days it had me felt like a fish swimming listlessly in the pond, not knowing when to ever stop swimming.
I experience boredom very often and it's an essential part of my world. Whether it's beginning of school break, finishing big project/homework or being at home all day on Sundays, I would stare at my phone scrolling through my YouTube feed, then fixate vacantly at the ceiling awaiting the next inspiration, sometimes dozing off in the process.
I sometimes confuse boredom with procrastination and vice versa because these two produce similar emotions and unpleasant feelings. When I don't feel like doing anything and humming the Lazy Song, I would either see it as boredom or procrastination or both.
I'm in the final years of college, starting to feel the mounting peer pressure of getting internships and side hustles. Despite the seemingly vast selection of jobs and apprenticeships, most of them did not appeal much to me. Sure, you don't know how enjoying and rewarding it would mean to you until you get your hands on it, but their job descriptions somehow turn me off. What's more, school breaks doesn't give you enough time to complete a single internship. So here I am, bored as hell, planting my butt cheeks on the stool writing this at the speed of 80 WPM.
There's a silver lining to boredom, though it's sometimes hard to see.
It sends me an signal that I'm not enjoying what I'm doing. Many times I would continue double down on a project because I have invested effort and time on it, even if it's unreasonable to continue on. Boredom urges me to reassess the state I'm currently in, therefore I'd be less prone to sunk-cost fallacy.
As I've mentioned in the beginning, boredom sometimes offer inspiration as a gift. My mind would wander when I'm not focusing anything on particular. And that when I start seeing things from a different perspective or view, which enables me to solve difficult problems and make better decisions.
In conclusion, being bored is never a pleasant feeling, but it's one feeling that you can't live without. Without it, I'd be forever doing stuff that no longer matters and having no reason to reflect what I've done and how far I've gone. Avoiding or alleviating boredom means continue living in ignorance and neglect.
Thanks for reading and writing's kinda therapeutic ngl.
Really beautiful article