【速度 1-6】 来源https://medium.com/personal-growth/why-boredom-is-powerful-but-being-bored-is-not-9f22e5daf4c
计时1 （267 words ）
Why BoredomIs So Powerful in Your LifeEmbrace the pain of your unusedpotentialThe differencebetween the two can determine your life satisfaction.Boredom is not lack ofstimulation. Ironically, the more distractions and external stimuli we pursue,the more bored we get.Boredom is a cleanslate. Being bored is escapism — it’s a mental state that we choose to avoidself-reflection.We feel bored because, deep inside ourselves, we know we cangive more. Boredom is the pain of unused potential; it’s a disconnection toeverything we can offer the world and vice versa. Boredom is a powerfultool that invites you to rethink your relationship with the world. Boredom is an acquired taste “I am never bored; to be bored is an insult to one’s self.”
― Jules Renard Some psychologists believe boredom is a trait. The ‘Boredom PronenessScale’ measures our propensity to feel bored. By contrast, the‘Multidimensional State Boredom Scale’ measures a person’s feelings of boredomin a given situation — our “stateboredom” isdynamic, not fixed. Boredom is not external; it’s how you engage with theworld. John Eastwood, director of the Boredom Lab at YorkUniversity believes that boredom is a ‘crisis of meaning.’ It invites us toreflect on how we engage with the world. Eastwood debunked themisconception that “only boring people get bored.” The Canadian professor found two distinct types of personality that suffer from boredom,and neither is particularly dull. The first type ofpeople have an impulsive mindset and are continually looking for newexperiences. The world isn’t enough of a rollercoaster — it’s chronicallyunder-stimulating.
计时2（241 words) The second kind hasthe opposite problem: the world is a fearful place. They try not to stepoutside their comfort zone. Their high-sensitivity to pain makes them withdraw.However, they don’t feel satisfied with being comfortable, and chronic boredomtakes over.
The origin of boredomWe live in an overly entertained society, yet we’venever suffered from boredom as we do now. Boredom is a social disease. Ages ago, when people were busy trying to survive,boredom wasn’t a choice. They spent all their time securing food or shelter;they didn’t have time to get bored. We are now overstimulated — easy access to infinite entertainment options is feedingboredom rather than discouraging it. As Dr. Sandi Mann, the author of The Upside of Downtime: Why Boredomis Good, explains: “The more entertained we are, the moreentertainment we need to feel satisfied. The more we fill our world withfast-moving, high-intensity, ever-changing stimulation, the more we get used tothat and the less tolerant we become of lower levels.” We crave for more time. However, when we have free time,we don’t know what to do with it. Nothing seems exciting enough to deserve ourvaluable time. We end doing nothing and get bored. Friedrich Nietzsche said: “is life not a thousand timestoo short for us to bore ourselves?”
Our ideas about how things should be are our mostsignificant distraction. We get bored with our repetitive thought pattern. 计时3（277 words) Avoidingboredom can be more damaging that ennui itself. Research has shown that, in response to a monotonous labsituation, participants voluntarily self-administered electric shocks. Theshocks served to disrupt feeling bored — it was the only available external source ofstimulation. In everyday life, we default to less-intrusive antidotesto boredom: company. We associate being in the company of others with havingfun. For most people, being alone and not being bored sounds counterintuitive. We have a hard time having funin our own company. That’s why people embrace busyness — you don’t realize you arebored when you are running from one place to another. Being busy is a trickyform of entertainment — we don’t feel the boredom, but it isn’t fun either. That’s the danger of not facing our boredom: it cancause more damage if it gets out of our mind.
Face this subtle enemy“He who fortifies himself completely against boredom fortifies himselfagainst himself too. He will never drink the most powerful elixir from his owninnermost spring.”—Friedrich Nietzsche Being bored is a damaging state of mind. By trying to escape from it, you get caught in subtletraps. Once you realized the side effects, it’s too late — tiny behaviors have turned into a habit. When you feel bored, you lose focus. Chronic attentionproblems such as attention deficit or hyperactivity disorders are connected tomonotony. Chronic boredom, continually feelingbored, has a direct relationship with compulsive behaviors.
Research shows boredom to be responsible for increased risk ofovereating, gambling, alcohol, and drug abuse, among others. Individuals withhigh boredom-proneness scored significantly more prone to suffer from anxiety,obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depression. 计时4 （253 words) Boredom can drive toprocrastination. When people get bored in a meeting, conference or analyzing areport, their performance drops dramatically. Chronic boredom is one of theleading causes of depression in the workplace too. Not addressing boredom is dangerous — it keeps you away from seeing yourself clearly, as I wrote here.
Your mind creates boring thoughtsBoredom is neutral — it’s up to you turn intosomething positive or negative. Sakyong Mipham, the author of Turning the mind into an ally, identifiesthree kinds of boredom. The first type has anundercurrent of anxiety. We are not comfortable with ourselves. Weare so used to being amused by external stimuli — fun means doing something with someone else. We believe that theantidote to boredom should be external. We need Netflix, a device, company oran object to rescue us from boredom. The second type of boredom is rooted in fear.We are afraid of being alone with ourselves because we can’t relax our mind.Confronting ourselves in solitude forces us to pay attention to who we are.Loneliness is an honest mirror — itreflects both our good and wrong sides. The previous two types are driven by our desire forthings to be different from how they are.
The third type is the realization that what really makes us feel bored is our thoughts,not reality itself. We start accepting that boredom is part of the landscape.We realize that it’s not that the world is predictable, our thoughts about itare repetitive. 计时5（281 words) Boredom is a state ofmind; getting bored is when we can’t deal with our repetitive thought pattern.
Turning the idle mind into an allyWhen we feel bored, we crave for more entertainment anddistractions. However, that will create more frustration and disappointment. To defeat boredom, you needless, not more, stimulation and novelty. Friedrich Nietzsche referred to boredom as the “unpleasantcalm that precedes creative acts.” Embrace boredom as a positive force. It seemsparadoxical, but feeling bored now will make you less bored in the future — it’s a pause to makemagic happen.
You are in charge.People with higher self-awareness and self-control areless prone to feeling bored. Meditation is a powerful tool to let yourrepetitive thought pattern free. Once you stop resisting boredom, it’s nolonger threatening. As Sakyong Mipham says: “Boredom is no longer needy; it’sspacious, comfortable, and soothing. My father called it ‘cool boredom.’”
You need a pause. Enjoy it.Silent is the think tank of the soul. Boredom, like silence, is not just theabsence of noise — it invitesthe presence of focus. Noise keeps you busy. Remove distractions and startlistening. What is boredom trying to tell you?
Boredom feeds creativity.Your brain likes to escape from the feeling of boredom;instead of providing external stimulation, let it feed on internal elements.Mind wandering invites creativity; rather than trying to focus on externalstimuli, let it find its own way shifting from one idea to another.
Avoid technology when you feel bored.
Entertainment snacks will make you crave for more;rather than controlling your boredom, your need for distraction will never besatisfied. Technology is anything but a boredom cure.
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发表于 2018-9-10 15:08:39
