Boredom persists if you don’t get rid of it

Seems obvious doesn’t it?

Yet, you’d be surprised how many people don’t think about that when being bored.

If you go to Wikipedia right now and you search for the word “Boredom” you’ll realize that there’s more to that word than you’d imagine. Or, actually, less. People don’t really know what boredom is despite it being with us for a long time.

It may be a psychological state, but it also makes our bodies feel… weird. Some people feel some kind of physical discomfort when being bored, some feel an extreme need to do something that doesn’t let them even sit down while others even feel pain.

What most of those who feel boredom have in common is the fact that all of them (or most of them at least) simply wait for boredom to go away, and they don’t really do anything to get rid of it, or at least nothing that could actually work.

You see, boredom appears often because everything around us is not as interesting as before. It may be our work, the movies we watch, the books we read, etc. We may feel a general state of boredom that makes every little thing boring and uninteresting.

So, what can you do when that happens?

Well, fairly easy — nothing you did before. It amazes me how the solution most people think of when trying to get rid of boredom is doing something they used to do in the past that worked for a while.

How could you get rid of boredom by doing something you know you can do, or something you repeatedly did in the past?

Another amazing thing is how people love to do things that don’t really have a meaning in order to get entertained or engaged. For example, I’ve seen maybe too many people who decide to play video games when they’re bored.

Now, that can be a good thing, especially if you like games. I love games, therefore whenever I’m bored with work, I just play something. However, what you play also matters. Playing a single player game is completely different from playing an online game, and what you’re after will impact that amount of enjoyment you’ll feel while playing.

Some people are really into competitive gaming and would do everything in their power to be better than others, and that’s entertaining for them. Others, like me, don’t always see the meaning of an online video game that has no ending, and would rather play a single player game that tells a story or is mechanically intensive. The problem appears when people who don’t like video games without an ending decide to play something like and MMO.

Other people watch movies in order to not be bored any more. The problem with that? They watch the same type of movies they watched before, hoping it will have the same effect as it did in the past.

Just because you like action based movies doesn’t mean you’ll always get entertained by them. Just because you love comedy doesn’t mean you’ll always want to watch that, especially when you’re bored.

But that’s what people don’t get — we want to be entertained, we need to do something engaging, and just repeating the same activities over and over again won’t really help you with anything.

Sure, playing games may be what you do to get rid of boredom, but playing FPS games despite the fact that you already played most of those games won’t always do the trick. What if you try something else? What if you try an RPG? Dark Souls perhaps? What if you try a strategy game? Age of Empires may be your new thing.

I used to hate Civilization games until I actually tried one around two years ago (Civilization 5). I didn’t play anything else for two months. I was obsessed with that game.

Same with movies — sure, you may like comedy but what if you can find some action movie that just keeps you entertained for 2 hours? Did you watch the latest Avengers movies? Why not? Is it because they are too popular and because of that they have to be bad? What about old movies? Just because something is old doesn’t mean it has to be bad as well. Try Leon the Professional.

Trying something new is important even when it comes to work. Sure, you may be an amazing programmer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get bored of programming. What’s your solution when that happens — learning another programming language? No wonder you’re bored.

What if instead of trying to learn another thing related to programming, you try something completely new? What if you try animation? Drawing? Maybe 3D modelling will be what you’ll like most.

I had the same problem in the past, getting bored of Photoshop and of anything related to graphic design. A friend of mine told me to try 3D. I did. Now I can’t find enough time to spend in Blender and work on all kind of scenes.

Doing the same things over and over again and expecting boredom to go away every single time won’t work. Do new things. Don’t watch the same movies over and over again — try something new. You like comedy? Try to watch something romantic. Maybe action based. You like to play games? Stop with the FPS for a month and try new things. You like books? Put down love stories for a while and try some mystery.

Entertain yourself with new activities, not with old ones.