One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is being stuck on an activity that’s boring. Sitting in traffic. Doing laundry. Waiting in a doctor’s office. Listening to your five-year-old tell the story of the dream she had last night.
The more you focus on your boredom, the more you amplify that feeling. Here are six tips to re-frame the moment; even if you can’t escape a situation, by re-framing your emotions about it, you can transform it.
— Put the word “meditation” after the activity that’s boring you. (This is my invention.) If you’re impatient while waiting for the bus, tell yourself you’re doing “Bus waiting meditation.” If you’re standing in a slow line at the drugstore, you’re doing “Waiting in line meditation.” Just saying these words makes me feel very spiritual and high-minded and wise.
-– Dig in. As they say, if you can’t get out of it, get into it. Diane Arbus wrote, “The Chinese have a theory that you pass through boredom into fascination and I think it’s true.” If something is boring for two minutes, do it for four minutes. If it’s still boring, do it for eight minutes, then sixteen, and so on. Eventually you discover that it’s not boring at all. If part of my research isn’t interesting to me — like the Dardanelles campaign for Forty Ways to Look at Winston Churchill — I read a whole book about it, and then it becomes absorbing. The same principle holds when doing boring or irritating tasks, like washing dishes.
— Take the perspective of a journalist or scientist. Really study what’s around you. What are people wearing, what do the interiors of buildings look like, what noises do you hear? If you bring your analytical powers to bear, you can make almost anything interesting.
— Find an area of refuge. Have a mental escape route planned. Think about something delightful or uplifting (not your to-do list!). Review photos of your kids on your phone (studies show that looking at photos of loved ones provides a big mood boost). Listen to an audiobook.
— Look for a way to feel grateful. It’s a lot better to be bored while waiting in a doctor’s office than to be in an agony of suspense about your test results. It’s more fun to sit around the breakfast table talking about dreams than to be away from home on a business trip. Maybe the other line at the drugstore is moving even more slowly. Etc.
— Consider: “Am I the boring one?” La Rochefoucauld observed, “We always get bored with those whom we bore.” I remind myself of this when I’m having a boring conversation with someone!
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