Despite all the free time and potential opportunities that come with boredom, the unlucky among us, in other words pretty much all of us, experience boredom simultaneously with occupation and work. This type of boredom is particularly uncomfortable, because it’s often much harder for us to change the setting we’re in, contrary to boredom that occurs when we aren’t occupied doing any tasks at all. It requires much more action than boredom in its purest form, that allows us to use its freedom and time to change our situation. The simple and obvious solution to this problem is to quit whatever is giving us this discomforting feeling, but unfortunately it’s not always that easy. We sacrifice our energy and free time for a greater reward in the future, whether that is a good grade, a degree, a pay rise or a source of income that will all improve our overall quality of life. Finding an alternative that will give us exactly what we need as well as being stimulating is so much easier said than done.
Boredom under occupation communicates that what we’re occupied with is so unfulfilling that we’d rather have the freedom to do nothing than continuing to do tasks that reduce our freedom and increase our boredom at the same time. It’s time spent that could have rather gone to increasing our well-being and happiness, and purely productively speaking, perhaps even our hidden talents and yet undiscovered potential. We’re stuck in the state of boredom, like prisoners of time, waiting for it all to pass by so we can focus on everything else that brings us joy after our escape. But during that time when we’re forced to complete tasks that don’t fulfill us, the overwhelming feeling of boredom dominates and suppresses every other thought or urge that could have kept us company. It’s like when I used to sit in maths and some students were so extremely bored that they’d rather sit there and do nothing, instead of at least shifting their focus on something they enjoy. Perhaps sometimes boredom can be so exhausting and draining that it prevents you from putting all your leftover energy towards something more productive and good.
Even if you wake up to a fulfilling day of work or tasks to do in the morning, there is no escape from the constant repetitiveness in our lives. We are gears in the machine of life, spinning around to hold all of our systems and structures together to ensure its contunity. Routines are necessary for us to be able to predict what we and others are going to do. Impulsiveness would only disrupt that flow and it’s impossible for everyone else to adapt, when the error in the chain of repetitive tasks comes from one lead only. Although all we do in life is repetitive without us fully paying attention to it, the obvious repetitiveness of structures and routines of daily life, work environments and sometimes even social lives where we tend to follow protocol in a certain way, can easily become limiting. Not in a sense that they directly restrict us in our abilities to take responsibility and change our pattern, but more in a way that it’s becoming increasingly harder to let go of this routine to explore other tasks we could occupy our minds with. Repetitiveness in itself does not have to come with boredom, and in fact mostly comes with safety, but it can easily prevent us from exploring new sources of fulfillment and happiness, coming from an inner desire to change and evolve that doesn’t need to co-exist with another external system that we didn't create.
Although I strongly believe each and everyone of us has a desire for personal development and growth, regular boredom can also too often be a luxury exclusive to the unambitious or the ones lacking in responsibility among us. Children have the innocent excuse of being too young to contribute actively to the world around them, as they are too occupied discovering what this world consists of in the first place. Later on in life, we have the excuse of being stuck on the treadmill of productivity and collective ambition and progress, where the outcomes aren’t necessarily directly tied to our own personal goals. Although not all of our time is spent there, it still leaves us with exhaustion that prevents us from using our time and energy to defeat the boredom that starts as soon as we step off the treadmill. It’s only the ones with no purpose or goal in mind, or those sacrificing their freedom and time for others such as parents and carers (without them sharing a space in the same category with the former of course), who are willing to accept their regular boredom - and sometimes it’s simply those who realize that wasting time is still time spent, and that it’s just as human to do so, too.
