Anything but This



Anything but This

Life can be boring at times, especially when you find yourself alone and with nothing much to do. During these times, in order to survive, you’ll need to find some way to occupy yourself. I’ve never personally known anyone who has died of boredom, but I hear the expression so much that I know cases must exist. And so to prevent this would be horrible death, one must find something to spark their interest.

But therein lies the problem. If there were something to spark your interest around, you wouldn’t be bored in the first place. So how do you generate something of interest when there is nothing appealing to you? You have to have a temporary lapse of sanity. In a way, you have to go crazy so you will stay sane. I know it all sounds tricky and contradictory, but trust me, it really all makes sense.

I have often times found myself bored in my life, as some of you may be finding yourselves bored right now reading this. I would just sit there and try to think of different things to do, but I didn’t really feel like doing anything. It was as if nothing in the world held any sway over me anymore. But just the other day, when I was attempting to do some quiet studying in my room, I ran across the solution.

I was doing some homework I didn’t really feel like doing at the time, and all of the sudden, everything else in the world got really interesting. I became acutely aware of the tiniest details, like the way my index finger crooked when I wrote, or how the rough surface of my wall held all sorts of hidden shapes. It was as if a whole new world was opened up to me. But I had seen this world before, a long time ago. I was seeing through the eyes of a child again.

Children find the world so interesting, but we have already seen everything so many times that nothing is new anymore. But in fact all you really need is a new way of looking at it. When you get sufficiently bored, your mind switches over from your normal way of thinking out of necessity.

So how do you reach this state? Easy. Do nothing. You just do nothing and it will come. But you actually have to be trying to do something at the time you are doing nothing in order for it to work. I will explain with a few examples. Think back to a class you have had in school where you weren’t particularly interested. When your mind started to wander I can be sure at some point in your career that you started to draw intricate designs on the side of your notebook. There is probably no other time in your life where you would do such a thing, unless you are an artist and like to do that for some reason. But the point is, your mind found something else for you to do so you wouldn’t snap.

But being in a classroom isn’t the ideal setting. When you are in school you can only do so much. You are like a caged animal. When you are at home, you can find all sorts of other things to do once everything else becomes fun. But when you’re at school, your choices are pretty limited. It is during this time that people begin to think that they can do anything. I never think any other time that I could run so fast as when I’m sitting there bored in class. I feel like I could outrun anyone at that moment, if only I were given the chance. It is like realizing your potential when there is nothing you can do about it.

So lets say you are at home with nothing to do, and you are ready to start pulling your hair out at the roots to pass the time. Before you do that, try this method. Take out a book, perhaps some of your old school notes, or a new book that will try to teach you something. Trying to learn a new language I happen to know works particularly well. Then you just sit down and start to force yourself to learn. I have found that if I ever try to do homework when I really don’t want to, I will often just stare right at the book and find the pattern of the words interesting, really getting no studying done at all. This is when you know it is starting to work.

So what do you do from there? Keep it up. Keep forcing yourself to try and learn whatever it is you are looking at until you can’t keep yourself still anymore. Your mind will start to move away from the normal, everyday thoughts and into a world where anything is possible. This is when you reach a state I like to call “anything but this,” where you suddenly want to be doing anything but what you are currently doing, even if it is something you would never normally consider doing.

If you go to a doctor’s office for instance, bring a book with you that will teach you something you don’t really want to know. But you have to try and read it, and try to learn it. You will find yourself drifting off and everything besides the book will be amplified. Or perhaps you just want to kill some time. If you are waiting for something to happen at 9:00, like going out with your friends, but you have gotten off work, eaten, and now it is only 6:00, then you could use this method as well. When you are at home there are countless things to attempt to do only to use it as a means of drifting away into something that is more interesting. Like trying to clean something, or reorganizing your room. You’ll find that as you are doing these menial tasks you’ll start to drift off, and most likely, if it works like I know it does for me, you’ll never even get the job done, but the three hours will pass by quickly, and then you can go out.

You can also use it to get the creative side of you flowing. You will find your mind drifting away and thinking the strangest thoughts. Why are my toes shaped like astronauts? Is it really impossible to lick the back of your elbow? All kinds of wild things. If you are trying to create something, you will find that you are more open after being bored with a certain activity. In fact, I got the idea to write this after being bored out of my mind.

People could say that boredom and idleness are a proof that someone is lazy, but I disagree. I think boredom and idleness are on the path of enlightenment. I think that you need to pass through a dull and boring day every once in a while if you really want to appreciate life and all its splendor. So sit around and pretend to be doing something. Let your mind take over, and live inside of your head. Try it out, try to learn something, or study something. If it doesn’t work, if you don’t find yourself becoming bored and finding everything else immensely amusing, then at least you will have learned something new. And if you were interested in what you learned, and did learn something new, then wouldn’t you have defeated your boredom right there anyways? So you see, either way you look at it, whatever the outcome, you will stave off your boredom.

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