Morning!
Hope you’re having a lovely weekend!
A few weeks ago, I started a Saturday at 6 AM by going to a local bagel shop down the street. Despite living in NYC, I’m not a huge bagel guy, but the spot is well-known and there’s always a line out the door on weekends — so I figured I’ve gotta see what the hype is.
I exchange $6 for 6” of dough and cream cheese and am on my merry way.
Typically, I unlock the two doors to the vestibule with an app on my phone. But in an effort to live slower in 2023, I’ve been running errands without my phone to disconnect just a tiny bit more — this bagel run was the first go-around.
I unlock the first door, success. Get to the second, put my key in, and twist.
It doesn’t turn.
I’m not concerned — the lock is weird and you’ve gotta fiddle the key a bit first.
So I fiddle, I twist. No luck.
“Maybe I turn counter-clockwise".
Fiddle, twist. No luck.
It’s starting to dawn on me that the lock is jammed, but I repress the thought.
Because it’s 6 AM, still dark out, raining — and I’m locked in a room with nothing but a bagel to preoccupy me.
Countless attempts later, I accept my fate:
“I’m going to have to wait it out until someone lets me in.”
6” of solid-but-what’s-the-hype later, it’s just me, my thoughts, and feelings.
Past Dennis might’ve panicked with anxiety and started banging on the door. Present Dennis didn’t want to wake his neighbors, and inadvertently got his wish to live slower, to fully disconnect.
The 2 ½ hours I spent locked out were genuinely awesome, I got to:
Let my mind wander and daydream to its heart’s content
Follow my curiosity as it bounced from marble wall to tile floor
Work through and unpack some pressing thoughts I had on my mind
Most importantly, be bored
So grab something to sip on, and let’s chat about the magic of boredom.
Who is boredom?
From what I understand, boredom is a state of emptiness that we move into when we’re unable to focus, due to a lack of excitement or meaning.
“I noticed it mostly while waiting — waiting in line anywhere, waiting for my young son to finish going to the bathroom, waiting 5 minutes for my pour over to finish up at the coffee shop, waiting at Walmart for a tire to be patched (I forgot to bring reading material), waiting for the gas tank to fill up. These small bits of time began to feel excruciatingly long — embarrassingly so, actually. What did it say about me, I wondered, that I get achingly bored after just a couple minutes with nothing to do?”
—Jeremy Anderberg
Essentially, whatever is in front of us is monotonous, unchallenging, or unfulfilling. Our brain, according to certain theories, is afraid of atrophying like any other muscle without enough stimuli. It sends off signals to let us know we gotta do something to kill time. Paired with a busy-bee mindset…
We avoid boredom like the Plague
No one likes being bored — to the extent that when left alone in an empty room, people will literally shock themselves to avoid boredom.
Modern technology has conditioned us to never be bored. People have access to and are overloaded with information and stimuli at all times.
Feel boredom creeping in? Pull out your phone or open a new tab and:
Throw on a podcast, sports game, or TV show in the background
Peruse your social media app of choice (Reddit connoisseur here)
I know I’m at my lowest when I make my way to LinkedIn
Fall down a rabbit hole of watching videos of adorable animals
Shower thoughts
A squeak, a hiss. Warm bliss cascades over you. You relish in it for who knows how long before—
POOF
You’ve figured out a game plan for that challenging situation or unpacked a difficult emotion. A satisfaction on par with a warm shower washes over you.
Shower thoughts are magical and seemingly unpredictable — but there’s actually an explanation why.
Our mind flips between two modes of thinking: focused and diffused.
Focused — We exert effort to understand a problem and troubleshoot
Diffused — We relax and let our mind wander, or rather, daydream
During diffused thinking, our mind is making connections in the background, sort of like a sous-chef doing the prep work for the executive chef.
Though focused thinking is often our daily driver or go-to, we need to make space for diffused thinking to share some of the responsibility.
When you’re starting off on a new problem or task, push hard with focused thinking to get the ball rolling, and when you lose your juice, pull back and let diffuse thinking carry the momentum.
You need your daily dose of Vitamin B(oredom)
Boredom, as I’ve alluded to earlier in this letter, can have awesome benefits:
Better productivity
Increased creativity
Stronger mental wellbeing
I’m an especially strong proponent of the last point, as I can attribute boredom to many of the breakthroughs I’ve had in my own life — ones that have given me the hindsight to recognize why I, like many people, avoid boredom.
“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
—Blaise Pascal
Avoiding boredom is often our thinly-veiled way of avoiding our own inner voice; thoughts and feelings that have been weighing on us, but are more uncomfortable to confront. Until we build that comfort and familiarity with sitting with our inner voice, we continue to avoid boredom.
All the while those thoughts and feelings on our minds? In the background, they’re building up in a pressure cooker until they’re screaming to be heard.
How to be (effectively) bored
Given the nature of boredom, it may sound counterintuitive to be intentional about creating space for it, but that’s exactly what we should do — otherwise, we’ll continue to avoid it as we always have.
To start, it’s important that you reframe boredom from a state of dread to an opportunity to:
Reset and take a breather from all the noise and stimuli
We use stimuli to escape boredom or to destress, but constant stimuli actually causes overwhelm, stress, and exhaustion
Reflect on where you’re placing your time, energy, and focus
Consequently, redirect them as needed
Spend quality time with yourself, as you would with a close friend
Take in each other’s presence — nothing more
Some approaches I’ve taken to create more space for boredom:
Block out time on your calendar for “no-screen time”
Let basic tasks be basic tasks — strip out the stimuli when you:
Get ready for the day
Prepare or eat meals
Walk or commute
Have no-screen alternatives on hand — the wonders of pen and paper!
We’re all unique and will have different minimum effective doses of boredom — just like with a shower, the key is finding the right degree for you.
Ultimately, the distractions will always be there, literally within arm’s reach. Time to be fully present with yourself and the beauty of life around you?
You and I both know aren’t guaranteed.
🔮 Weekly Wonders
🎁 Community Piece
A Warm Touch
I sense summer has arrived
Because every slight shift
Sticks our skin together a little more
Reminding us of the heat we somehow filtered out
The low hum of the cart sings
Subtle bumps in the track adding soft bass.
Your head on my shoulder, mine on the wall
Winding down to life’s lullaby
A scenic film plays through the train window,
blurry trees flash by to half-heartedly blemish
The ever so bright reflections of the sea
The minuscule sails remain a blip in the horizon
The warm orange a consistent heart soother
—S
💡 Idea
💬 Quote
“Boredom: the desire for desires.”
—Leo Tolstoy
🔎 Question
What tasks or situations in your typical day does boredom show up?
What’s your go-to boredom killer? What could you replace it with that’s not screen- or Internet-related?