Why do we feel bored ?

Manish Kumar
3 min readOct 4, 2020

Humans have this innate nature of getting bored of things. Well, the sad thing is they even have this nature of resolving boredom with escapism.

In everybody’s life there comes a time when they feel like they need to escape somewhere. It’s more like a red/blue pill situation. Red pill is running away somewhere to distract their mind from things which have been bothering them. Blue pill is carrying on with the same old life without reacting to this mood swing. I think one should swallow bit of both the pills but the red one in an intellectual context.

Everybody has some job to do to earn their living. Now people’s expectations out of the jobs is not just the salary they get but they also seek to be entertained from it and have lots of fun doing it. Their expectations are totally justified. But does this actually happen in reality ? Most of the people get bored of their jobs within few years and then start experiencing those mood swings of escapism. It’ very ordinary what they feel but what should be extraordinary is how one reacts to it.

If your find your job doesn’t give you the kick it used to anymore, go find some course to do on your weekend related to your field, expand your domain, widen your vision to spot things that can help you get that dopamine back out of your job and also lands you at a better place in the future. The ultimatum is a job cannot be boring unless you’re employed as a security guard or something. Every job has some opportunity for you to learn and grow and make a skilled craftsman out of yourself. This phenomenon of learning, figuring things out on your own, revelations and rectifications to your past beliefs is what should be your “Aha” moment. If you’re a person who’s eager to learn, who loves to explore the hell out of things and has an open mind to soak all the wisdom that lies around, you can never be bored.

One of the main reasons for feeling bored is the victim syndrome. People just assume that it’s their job’s fault that they are bored or it’s their company fault that they’re bored and the list goes on. So the first step to deal with boredom should be to take responsibility for your current state. Say it loud, it’s all your deeds that have led to the state you’re in. Once you start taking responsibility for yourself and your mood, then only you’ll be able to figure out solutions out of it.

Such solutions would include reading things which stimulate you intellectually. Watching podcasts which makes you think harder about the way you’ve been doing things. There’s no end of learning whatever be the field or career. Even the finest craftsmen find something to learn everyday at their jobs. Learning everyday doesn’t mean there won’t be any monotony with the tasks you do but it ensures that you’ll end up with plenty of new things that’ll keep your mind intellectually stimulated and that’ll keep you motivated to go on forever.

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Manish Kumar

Software Engineer who's into Philosophy, Chess and Travel.