This came out as more of a rant but I was wondering if other people felt the same?
Yesterday changed that and I'd give anything to be bored again.
Yesterday we took our two dogs to the river for a walk. Two men got into trouble in the water, I jumped in to help. All I could do was help another man get free of one of the drowning men.
The fellow rescuer couldn't breathe with the panicking man grabbing him and the current pulling them both under. If I'd been first too them I'm sure I'd be dead as the other rescuer was in much better shape than me.
So I helped a man get free of another man's desperate struggle for life. I watched as two men died a few meters from me. In front of their family. A woman asked my wife why we weren't helping them. It was her husband and father.
The water was too dangerous, the men too panicked, and I was too unfit.
Emergency services recovered three bodies from that river. A woman and her daughter had drowned in the same spot a week ago. The woman's body was found by the divers looking for the two men.
I long to go back to being bored.
Best of luck.
I'm sorry you had to endure that.
Only other advice would be to hug your dogs. Sometimes they're better than therapy.
There is your problem. Vacation is a chance to try something different, something that wouldn't fit into your regular work schedule. Go travel somewhere, try mountain climbing, or skiing, or diving/swimming, or whatever else you can't do within a regular weekend. You'll come back energized, happy and refreshed.
By far the most arduous part was avoiding anything resembling my day job, avoiding tech news, avoiding anything that felt like work. Working in tech for sixteen years it is the least exciting way I can spend my free time, but habits formed over the years and the communities I participate in heavily sway my information flows into that space. I just started un-following people on twitter, removing myself from sub reddits, and deleted slack off my devices.
If I knew I was going to have more long term free time I can easily find ways to make use of it as I have hobbies that I only get to do sparingly, playing music, drawing, painting, watching horror movies, playing my back catalog of steam, switch and xbox games, doing investment research, doing yoga, and learning music production/recording. When work eats a third of my day everyday it makes it more difficult to do things I want to do, if you knew your job wasn't going to interfere with your life you probably wouldn't feel this way.
Yeah I think part of my boredom probably stems from realizing that I don't usually have much free time
Here is some good advice.....
It's good to rest after a day of doing nothing
Rest during the day, so you can sleep at night.
Work earns illness, do not pass away young.
If you have the urge to work, sit down, wait and you'll see it will pass.
If you see someone resting, help them out.
Love thy bed as you love thyself
When you see people eat and drink- approach them, when you see them work - withdraw yourself not to trouble them.
Wake up, watch TV, scroll through HN/Reddit/Twitter, eat, sleep, repeat. There are literally zero stressors motivating me to do more. The things I already do don't feel as rewarding because I didn't have to go through any hurdles to get them.
I don't know what the right solution is, but creating artificial stressors (isn't that what we're all doing anyway?) has helped me stay sane. One way I do this is by diving deep into questions which I really want the answer to: Who invented X? Why did the Roman Empire fall? What made Islam or Christianity so popular? What is Web 3.0? My mind immediately gets excited as I start scouring the web for answers or even reaching out to a friend who might know more. No longer bored and better informed.
I suspect hobbies and conversations stimulate a similar effect.
Isn't this the point of a vacation? :)
I need to build and create and explore in order to feel good. I might wire up some crappy electronic device, make a piece of furniture, play with my kids, teach my kids something, make a kumiko panel, draw, read, make a tool for my shop, try to 3d print something new and useful, go spearfishing, harvest seaweed, run, make a new interesting dish in the kitchen - if I’m not doing something, I feel like I’m wasting time. Doing this stuff is relaxing. Knowing I’m making the most of my time in this life gratifies me.
People have often told me it’s bad that I can’t slow down and just relax. To each their own though. I’d rather play guitar then listen to someone play guitar. I’d rather build a hot tub then buy one so I can sit in it. And that’s totally fine, so long as you’re happy!
- Pick a random street/neighborhood on Google Maps, and explore that area
- Frequent local restaurants and bars, try to make myself open to socializing so that I can talk to locals and learn about their lives
- explore the nightlife
- explore old/abandoned buildings
- rent an e-scooter or a bike and just explore the city
- tag along with locals in their activities
I also never go to beaches or on cruises because it's just too "still", low energy activities bring me down rather than help me recover from stress.
If I travel for vacation, I take a moleskin notebook and write, sketch etc. Seek out activities that don't involve electronic displays, computers, etc.
Had an opportunity to move away from your family for better work? Ofcourse, but also a trap. Don't need friends, work pals are enough? Only while you have common experiences outside the work environment, then people will stop calling.
Figure out hobbies that create whithout expecting to deliver something. Cook for the sake of it even if you suck. Find interests that were important 500years ago and will probably be interesting 500 years in the future, they are more probable to be of true human core intetest. Read fiction, read history, write something for yourself, write something for your family. Walk out enjoy a stream, a faraway countr, 3rd world if possible. Find interest in doing stuff without outsourcing the decision making process to your superior or to the marketed hobby du jour. Good luck.
If everything is meh and one prefers dulling the mind through anxiousness then therapy also helps.
You gotta use your time off to do other stuff. That's why people travel etc, because it changes your environment, people, food, etc. It lets you step out of that daily routine and mental pathways and feedbacks.
For me getting a hobby that involved leaving my house and going outside really helped
Funny I was thinking about personal growth projects obsessively the whole week I was laid up. Got a programming side project nearly finished, got a new tripod in the mail, had a great time with family in Binghamton.
I was dead tired for a few days but never bored.
For me it appears I was cought in a unhealthy circle of stress that creeped into my life to be the new normal.
As I see it: Motivational deeps may are just a way into deeper relaxation. More Relexation leads to less stress and more creativity.