Boredom to freedom

This post is a result of numerous discussions, brain-storming sessions, casual conversations, personal experiences all put together. I realized that people repine over the apathy towards life all the while, to a result, most of my conversations started this way:

Me: Dude, wassup?
Person on the phone: Ahh, the usual boring stuff buddy
Me: ??..!! hmm

Should I accede to my inner thought that all my friends were the most boring people on this planet? I am sure that’s not true, these are the people I look upon when I am having a low day – the most full of life guys! (Thanks!). Past few days I have been thinking what is boredom? How is boredom caused? What is the cure to boredom? I am no boredom doctor so I started having conversations with my colleagues, friends over a cup of coffee, which helped a lot because everybody had a different perspective to the way they looked at boredom, their views, their activities etc.

Let’s have a look at the responses that friends gave me when asked when they get bored - No work in office, loneliness, unhealthy conversations, repetitive work, staying at home, mundane discussions, irrelevant meetings, no television, no internet, daily routine, lack of attention from loved ones, waiting for somebody beyond the said time etc.

For one of my friends it was very boring to sleep. He prefers to sleep only because his body needs it, otherwise he feels that’s the most boring activity ever. Given a chance he would like to learn something new, cultivate a hobby or do something creative. Sleeping is just another thing for him – wow! My other cute friend said she hates to eat dinner! LOL!

Professional work plays an important part – no work, repetitive work, too much work etc all leads to boredom. (Damn! How can no work lead to boredom? I am waiting for such a day! ..kiddin’ folks, I know how it feels)

Another important aspect is the nature and the personality of the person. During the exercise of chatting with people, I also realized that the lack of artistic interests can lead no boredom. Sources say that 5 of 10 people don’t have any hobbies, 4 of 10 people do not read, 7 of 10 people do not cultivate interest for a new activity, 6 of 10 people are lazy to follow the same routing for more than 5 months. Phew, exhaustive study!

Making friends, watching movies, surfing the internet, long phone conversations, reading news, observing people & their characteristics, diary writing, spending time with oneself, observing nature, listening to music, youtube, talking to somebody full of life, play sports, keeping fit, watching tv, long rides were the replies when asked about activities people do or prefer to do to kill boredom.

So where are we going making these assumptions & doing such analysis? The goal is, within ourselves we should never feel that we are bored! How sickening it can be that we have a million thousand things to learn and do and we still feel that we are bored. I attended one “happy life” sessions in my office where the speaker told this unique stuff which I never thought of. When we are bored we call up friends to feel better – did we ever realize that when we are ourselves this boring, how will our friend/s enjoy our company?

My friends formed new, never-read, personal, not patented definitions of boredom and I am gonna list all of those here for us to pick the one that suits us and say to ourselves - I am never going to be bored again in life – come what may!

#1 - Applying mind and efforts fully and not achieving the set expectations can lead to boredom - we might do something very interestingly, full of heart but never succeed in achieving the set expectations. This will lead to boredom.
#2 - Applying mind and efforts fully and achieving the set expectations can lead to boredom - a true example of office work! What if we are forced to do something??..!!
#3 - Boredom = useless time + lazy mind
#4 - Boredom is a temporary craving that develops when you don’t find an activity of interest – simple definition, yet true! The next big thing for all of us is finding our own area of interest and spending sometime to inculcate that as a habit or hobby!
#5 - Boredom = when I am doing some stuff; my mind is working on it & my heart says WTF are u doing?? Get a life dude!! – LOL, only kurt can do this!
#6 - Boredom is a prolonged phase of noninterest, monotonous activities to be done without motivation
#7 - Boredom is sitting idle and sitting idle is boring – Sweet thing!

And they did not end there – they gave me the cure also, so here ya go,

#a -make somebody smile, make them happy in turn makes u feel better! – this can kill boredom (Q is can you make the other person happy when you are bored?)
#b - develop a constructive hobby
#c - change to a constant routine
#d – refresh good old memories with oneself and with friends
#e - chat with loved ones
#f - boredom is a state of mind, controlling ur mind can kill boredom
#g – try to do things that u feel like doing and not forced to do

Folks – this is just an attempt so that we can live in a world where people around us and ourselves start feeling that there is nothing called as boring or boredom. Lets make everything interesting! Watsaya?

stay fit, speak your mind & be a charmer!
~RJ

P.S. I know the post is a bit long but boring is such a thing - what can I do? :)