How many times has the feeling assaulted us that what we are doing is meaningless, something inadequate, wrong or just plain uncomfortable? It is as if suddenly a voice inside of us starts to tell us: “what are you doing here? This is not what you should be doing right now. " In fact, boredom also comes from the feeling that we are wasting time doing something useless.
When it happens once or twice a month it is not a problem, but if it happens often it is very likely that something in our life is not working as it should. If we feel that we are doing something inappropriate it is because we are probably involved in an activity that does not satisfy us. We may not even know (at least consciously) what we really want to do, but we are sure of the nonsense of what we are doing here and now.
Where does this feeling of boredom come from?
When we were children there was always someone telling us what to do. At home it was usually our parents, while at school the teachers. Back then we wanted to quickly become adults so that no one would ever tell us what to do. And here we are, we are adults and no one tells us what to do, we are the architects of our daily life. But are we really? The story is not as linear as it seems, at some point along the way it gets tangled.
Allow me a little parenthesis.
Anthropologist Margaret Mead once raised a very interesting trick question: What is the difference between a Russian and an American?
The American tends to fake a headache to avoid taking part in a social obligation that doesn't satisfy him while the Russian, on the other hand, really needs to get a headache.
What does it mean? That the American uses lies (thus manages to escape the obligation, but perhaps suffers from some remorse), while the Russian is able to self-induce the headache so as to remain at peace with his own conscience.
Likewise, once we have grown up, control of our actions (which previously had parents and teachers) has passed to us, but now it is society that gives us the headache. That is, it makes sure that we abide by all rules and conventions, even if our parents or teachers are no longer there to remind us.
It is such a perfect control mechanism that it seems almost diabolical. The problem, however, is that in this way many people never mature and remain children perennially, leaving society to continue to control their lives, without ever developing self-determination. Instead of doing what they really want, they do what they think they should. So it is not surprising that the feeling of discomfort sometimes appears, and with it the doubt that you are not doing the right thing.
How to deal with this feeling?
Most people cannot leave a life built over the years out of the blue. But that doesn't mean you are doomed to conform to it forever, you can start taking small steps to eliminate that uncomfortable feeling and replace it with a feeling of satisfaction and peace with yourself. How to do it?
First, by determining what you really want to do with your life. There are many people who have not set goals and therefore often get absorbed by the categories of others, they get involved in activities that do not interest them and that make them waste energy and precious time. When you have established what you want to do with your life, at least
in the medium term, it will be possible to set a series of objectives that will make it possible to achieve this goal.
The second step is to organize our daily activities to include those that truly correspond to our life plan. It does not matter if at the beginning you can dedicate only 4 hours a week to these activities, later on we will gradually increase the time to devote to the activities that give us pleasure.
Of course, to make room for new activities it will first be necessary to reassess your entire daily routine and remove all those activities that do not bring anything. I know it is difficult to put into practice, because we love habits and routines and everything new scares us, but I assure you that once you start the journey you will see that it is worth it.
