When Life becomes Stagnant; Dealing with boredom

When you search the internet on dealing with boredom you'll find a bunch of articles and everyone of them will tell you some good ways to overcome boredom. They would talk about watching movies, travel, read books, have control on life, etc.  So I won't tell you what they already told and I'll try to present a different perspective which I think is the main cause of boredom. 

So let's begin with an allegory.

There was a person who was going to a place "honolulu". He boarded on the train. As the train started running, he got to see amazing views  from the window, the journey was excited.

The place where he had to go could arrive anytime, and he had to pull chain to stop the train because that was not the stopping station. But the person had little patience. Soon he started getting bored, the outside view became stagnant, all the villages the train passing through were same. 

As the time kept passing he got irritated and frustrated because of boredom. He was now more concerned with the journey rather than being excited about the destination.

To end his boredom he took out the pen from his bag and started making drawings on the wall and seat. He found it interesting and kept drawing in his entire coach. He got so busy that he forgot to pull the chain, and he never realised that when the station where he had to stop had left behind.🤦🏻‍♂️

So eventually he lost his destination.

This is actually our life. When we started this journey of life we were excited. As a child we were excited about the life, things were new and we were happy in whatever we had because with our age we were getting exposed to new things. Then we grew into adolescence where we were still exploring 🧗⛹️ and didn't had enough reason to be sad and depressed as we have in our midlife. When we grew old further we realise that the excitement of life was going dull exponentially.

Doing same routine work‍ made the life boring. Working hard in earning and then finding opportunities in spending is just a compensation to overcome for the ultimate boredom. Being unemployed and having no work to do🥱 made the boredom more apparent.

Study shows, The chronically bored are at higher risk for drug addiction, alcoholism, and compulsive gambling. But not go that far, technology found less harmful ways to get us distracted from boredom. Social media apps and Netflix gave us a great opportunity to find relief from the boredom. 

On a serious note, the question is why boredom arises? According to German philosopher Walter Benjamin "We are bored when we don't know what we are waiting for." and I second that. When we become forgetful of the destination and when life appears stagnant, we get bored. 

When we get bored we try to find out ways to overcome that. Just like the train passenger. To make the journey exciting, we get involve in many things that ultimately make us distracted and more forgetful of our destination.  

We gravitate towards sins and distractions more when we are bored because they create excitements. Therefore it's necessary for us to keep reminding ourselves that we are continuously heading towards our destination even if life appears boring and stagnant. We are bored when we think life becomes stagnant. However, there's no stagnation in reality, every moment we're getting closer to the end. 

When we are bored, things come in our mind are Type I activities such as movies, webseries, songs, gossips, scrolling social media, shopping, working more and more, etc etc. 

But when we are actively waiting for the end, we think of better options that are not only exciting but also beneficial called as Type II activities such as going out and planting trees, finding some children in neighbour and educate them, looking a less fortunate person and be involved in his/her happiness, etc. 

Prophet Muhammad (ﷺ), said, "The one who cares for an orphan and myself will be together in Paradise like this," and he held his two fingers together to illustrate.

The goal is not to only kill boredom but also do it productively and in a way that is beneficial for our end. Type I activities do kill boredom but they don't do any benefit. However Type II activities serve the both purposes.

Although the "need of fun" is one of the four psychological needs (other three are belonging, power, freedom) described by American psychiatrist William Glasser. But this cannot be sought by being oblivious of the destination. 

There are only two ways to escape from boredom. Either your journey is itself full of adventure that you never get bored which is nearly impossible or your excitement towards your destination put the boredom on the edge. 

As a poet said,

"kadam hai raah e ulfat me to manzil ki hawas kaisi

Yaha'n to ayin manzil hai thakan se choor ho jana"

For most of us, our life at some moment lost its adventure and many times we actually had to involve in routine work that is obviously boring, in those moments it's our excitement of the destination that keep us away from distractions and sinful acts.

Without that, we're more likely to indulge in the cycle of entertainment and work. We do hard work, that creates anxiety, to blow away anxiety we indulge in entertainment. The cycle continues till death and in this cycle we forget who we are, why we'd come here and where are we going. This is why it's hard for us to pursue the right path even after knowing it. 

We started the journey as a traveler, we had proclaimed in the Aalam e Arwaah of which Qur'an speaks about - 

When your Lord took from the Children of Adam, from their loins, their descendants and made them bear witness over themselves, [He said to them,] ‘Am I not your Lord?’ They said, ‘Yes indeed! We bear witness.’ [This,] lest you should say on the Day of Resurrection, ‘Indeed we were unaware of this. [7:172]

You need to remind yourself this truth that you are a traveler and for you the most important thing is destination. As we've been commanded. 

And keep yourself patient [by being] with those who call upon their Lord in the morning and the evening, seeking His face [i.e., acceptance]. And let not your eyes pass beyond them, desiring adornments of the worldly life, and do not obey one whose heart We have made heedless of Our remembrance and who follows his desire and whose affair is ever [in] neglect.  [18:28]

The excess of entertainment and materialistic 

possessions aren't going to solve the problem either.

As Immanuel Kant said,

 "Give a man everything he wants and then everything will not be everything" 

So more than about stuffs it's about psychology. This deeply embedded boredom cannot be turned into fun unless we'll dive deep into ourselves. To return to the very basic truth that we're travelers and we're continuously moving toward our destination. The destination is meeting with our lord, our creator and finally a place to live forever that is paradise. 

But how can we be excited about the destination when we don't have any interest about that. The reason we aren't interested because we have enough activities to indulge in to escape from boredom but unlike the train passenger when our destination arrive we'll have to get off from the train forcefully and that forcing agent is death. 

So it's important for us to learn more about our destination instead of putting all efforts in adorning the journey. For it's the only way to deal effectively with our innate boredom. 

Thankyou for taking out your time to read. Please share your feedback and suggest some more Type II activities so that we can truly appreciate the opportunity of LIVING.