How To Fix Sunday Afternoon’ Existential Boredom
Millions long for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon — Susan Ertz
Boredom was never an interesting topic to me but this Sunday afternoon something happened. Nothing made sense when I was over consumed with the information coming from everywhere. Everything was so well-structured and highly predictable to a degree that I dropped my interest in it.
There is a formal term for it Existential Boredom it goes like 📢
Existential boredom defines an inability to find not just particular things but all of life interesting. It manifests itself as a mood in which, for no reason you can articulate, nothing seems to satisfy — even things that normally do. When you find yourself flipping from Internet site to Internet site; picking up a book, reading a few pages, and then putting it back down; walking around your apartment or house in search of something to do but finding nothing to engage you.
Technology And Boredom
Our over-dependency on technology for almost everything is killing our quest to search for more and deep. People can no longer read long-form articles.
Friedrich Nietzsche once said 📢
“Our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts“
We are typing and tapping on multiple devices, talking to Siri, Cortana or Google assistant and how we communicate is transforming how we think about everything. But we don’t feel that we are doing anything, no doubt that work is getting done efficiently.
We feel that the real contribution is coming from the technology but we are constantly occupied and consumed by multiple screens. Tools we use are becoming extension of our mental capacities and we are becoming slaves of these tools. Technology has spared us so much time but we are keeping ourselves preoccupied with the technology all day.
Freedom seems to be a burden once you don’t know what to make out of your life. Following shallow pursuits like checking mobile every minute escapes us from any deliberate and deep work.
Why Don’t We Do Anything?
Because there is no crisis to attend to.
Seth Godin, in his book Linchpin says 📢
Our lizard brain is hungry, scared, angry, and horny. The lizard brain only wants to eat and be safe. The lizard brain will fight (to the death) if it has to, but would rather run away. It likes a vendetta and has no trouble getting angry. The lizard brain cares what everyone else thinks, because status in the tribe is essential to its survival
Since we don’t have any immediate issue so we enjoy our time by wasting it. We fall victim for Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) an uneasy feeling that we are missing out something that your peers know about, or somebody else is knowing the situation better than you, something exciting or interesting is happening elsewhere.
Consuming content is very addictive. Checking your “likes” has become the new smoking. We keep on curating our own social image and look forward to how others are responding to those.
How To Come Out Of Existential Boredom
Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom — Albert Einstein
Labor in freedom. I know it is like asking too much. But if you want to do something you need to know that nothing worthwhile was ever accomplished easily without obstacles.
Whatever is your current life situation you need to work towards a better future and that requires efforts, commitment and focus.
1️⃣ Become A Lifelong Learner
Improving your overall ability to learn over lifetime was never so critical earlier. Do Deliberate Practice. Learning is hard. Will you take “bad time” over “boring time”? — Ask Yourself.
Set a routine for practice. Dedicate some time for trying and learning new ideas on the subject. 🔗Lifelong learning can improve our understanding of the world around us and bring us superior opportunities while empowering us to outsource least favored jobs.
Being authentic will make your vulnerable but totally worth it. When you fall your supporters will stand by you because they saw authenticity in your art.
Follow your passion, work like a professional and quickly you will come to be 🔗 so good that they can’t ignore you.
2️⃣ Think Future
All of us are futurists. We are constantly making suppositions about the future, and some are able to detect signals while observing various trends. In today’s occupational world, futurists play a key role in leading organizations and humanities. They guide us not to agree with the faster horses but to think radical and transform the total drama of how we revolutionize.
It could be 10x thinking or artificial intelligence based prediction tools. To remain competitive and practical, every business and society want to have a strong grip on the handle of future. Need for the futurist is extraordinarily compelling and every community, association, and nation need one.
3️⃣ Create More Consume Less
We have been continuously pulled away from our loving and creative self to something as totally insignificant like a notification sound on our mobile. We check our work email then without any guilt we are hooked on to some video –only because it is too tempting.
It is not easy to start something on your own. But then again do you want those fears and mental blocks to stay endlessly inside you or do you want to overcome those and 🔗start living your unlived creative life?
Find opportunities in your current work and life where you can add value by creating. Create a themes, tell a story, and bring in personal touch — while you transform consumed content to create something.
You may face this problem everyday whether to consume or create but it is creating that will change lives. In the form of a business, a product, or a service, doesn’t matter- You need to start your journey from 🔗consumer to creator.
🌻Everybody is creative and next giant victory could be yours. In this wireless and border-less world everybody stands a chance, but if you don’t take it –that’s your fault. Life is not easy, life is not perfect. Socrates’ famous words that “The un-examined life is not worth living” is worth pondering.
