08 December 2015

A Plausible Solution.

As I mentioned in my last post, I often waste away a lot of my time sitting in front of the TV or my laptop, or even my phone. The general idea is to do 'nothing' as a means of recharging my batteries after a week of hard-work. But sitting idle does not work for more than a few hours. After that the lack of doing nothing except for staring at illuminated screens, eyes glazing-over, only adds to the lethargy and boredom.
But I persist, convinced that doing nothing and resting as much as I can is the best way to make-up for all the work I did the whole week. I ignore the build-up of boredom simply as my inability to find a movie or game or book interesting enough to be worth my time. 

Sleeping too much during the day only makes things worse. I often sleep through an afternoon only to wake up just as it is starting to get dark and realize that I could've spent the lovely evening enjoying the weather outdoors. 

And it's not even the weekends; more often than not I spend my after-work, after-dinner hours in front of the TV, convinced that I'm just getting the rest I need and couldn't possibly summon energy for anything else. 

I could go on describing the crisis giving more examples and details, but I think I should stop here.

Despite the infinite boredom, there are moments when I realize that the solution is really just to get off the chair or out of the bed and do something. Anything at all. Taking ANY action helps, and encourages further action, and so on. 
For example:
Try cleaning up your house, room, table, or cupboard. Few things give me a deeper sense of peace and joy than to sit at my newly uncluttered study-table and just take in the neatly arranged things and that squeaky clean surface. Or you could try ironing your clothes and hang them up in your cupboard. While you are at it, pick out the dirty shirts and throw them in the washing machine. Yep, I just recommended a bunch of house chores for the terminally bored! But removing unpleasant clutter can be an effective boredom-buster and I suggest you try it.

To this I'd like to add one more 'dimension', so to speak. When setting out to do your anything thing in the middle of such boredom, try and focus only of this one thing. No more office tape from the past week playing in the back of your head; just turn it off the best you can. Let go of all judgement and expectations. Just tell yourself that this is just one little thing that you are going to do for only so much time, and then get on with it. The idea is to snap out of the dreamworld in your head and into the present moment in time, pay attention to what you are doing, and discover the simple joy/peace in doing very simple stuff. This is easier said than done, and I speak from experience. It is not a switch, I know. But with some perseverance it should become quite doable before long. 

Hope this rang a bell. :-)

Cheers,
Aashish.

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