The Boredom Epidemic: Why We're Unhappy

In our fast-paced, hyper-connected world, boredom has become a pervasive epidemic, silently chipping away at our happiness and well-being. "The Boredom Epidemic" podcast delves into why we're so restless and dissatisfied, exploring the psychological, social, and technological factors that contribute to our constant state of unease.

But this podcast isn't just about diagnosing the problem—it's about finding solutions. We'll uncover practical strategies for cultivating mindfulness, embracing stillness, and rediscovering the simple joys that bring true fulfillment. Whether you're struggling with chronic boredom or simply seeking a more meaningful life, this podcast will equip you with the tools to escape the boredom trap and unlock a happier, more fulfilling existence.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast,

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

My guess is you've seen or probably heard of the movie Hangover.

It's about four men who live really boring lives and they're just sick of their lives so they go to Las Vegas for a weekend to celebrate their friend's bachelor party.

And they have all these adventures that they get through,

They survive,

And then when the show ends you may be thinking,

Wow,

That was quite an adventure.

Some of you might even be thinking,

I want that to happen to me.

My life is so boring.

Now there's another movie you may not have heard of that was also about Vegas.

It's called Leaving Las Vegas.

It came out in 1995 and the main character was played by Nicolas Cage and it's about a man who goes to Las Vegas to basically drink himself into oblivion and dies.

My office that I work in is in Newport Beach,

California,

Which is about four hours from Las Vegas.

So over the years,

I've known a lot of people who've gone to Vegas.

And of course,

Anything can be fun and Vegas has a lot of fun things to do there.

But at the same time,

It surprised me how often when people make choices that have really negative consequences to them,

Often do them while they're in Vegas.

One of the things in life that we really don't like is we don't like to be bored.

A colleague of mine who was very much involved in women's shelters shared a story that was very interesting.

She said,

You know,

Dr.

Puff,

When women come here,

They're so relieved to get out of these incredibly awful situations where they're being beaten emotionally or physically abused.

And when they get there,

They're so relieved.

But she said within about two to three days,

They start getting restless.

They start getting bored.

And some of the women will leave the shelter and start going to bars to find something or someone exciting to be with because they're bored.

And some people think,

Well,

These people are just stupid.

They're just not very intelligent.

Well,

Let me share another story with you.

You probably never heard of her,

But her name is Ada Lovelace.

And she was a mathematician and an incredibly brilliant person.

She was so brilliant that many people credit her for being one of the first,

If not the first person to start building computers.

She was the first person in history that recognized that the mechanical machine had applications beyond calculations.

But like many of us,

She got bored too.

So she got involved with horse racing and lost incredibly amounts of money and was hugely in debt and died at an incredibly young age of 36 in London,

England.

So what is boredom and why do we get bored?

And more importantly,

How can our boredom lead us to unhappiness?

Let me use an analogy to help understand what boredom is because boredom is basically a sense of blah.

You may or may not remember,

But when you were a kid or if you have children right now,

The first time they ever have anything sweet like ice cream or candy,

They're like,

Oh my goodness,

That is absolutely wonderful.

And then when you go back to feeding them regular food,

They want more ice cream.

Give me more ice cream.

I want more ice cream.

And we don't give them more because we know that eating too much ice cream isn't good for you.

So instead we give them peas and fruits and things like that,

That are good for them.

Hopefully at least.

I remember when I was a kid,

We would go to this restaurant periodically and get dinner and they had banana splits there.

I'd seen them,

But I didn't know much about them,

But they looked delicious.

So one day my dad said,

You can have one,

But you have to eat the whole thing if you get one.

I said,

Okay.

So I ate the whole thing and I was so sick afterwards.

I was like,

Oh,

And I have never eaten a banana split after that the rest of my life.

So this is how boredom relates to what I'm talking about with food.

We through life sometimes have really wonderful experiences that are exciting,

That are thrilling,

That are just,

Oh my goodness,

Wonderful.

But these excitements,

These thrills are more like dessert.

They're okay to have once in a while,

But if they become something that we seek all the time,

They're going to get us in trouble.

So though we may go to Vegas once in a while,

We may go on a hot air balloon ride every once in a while.

We may go scuba diving and explore this underworld sea around us.

But the problem is we can't do this all the time and we have to live our life.

So life in contrast to these more exciting things can seem boring and they're really not boring.

It's just in comparison and contrasting,

They're not as metaphorically sweet as regular life.

So we crave them,

We desire them.

And that's why drugs and alcohol can be so powerful because you can be having a really bad day and life not going well and be extremely bored.

But if you take that heroin or that meth,

You're going to feel better temporarily.

But we all know drugs come with consequences.

That's why we're very careful with drugs and substances.

But it's true with everything in life.

We have to be careful because boredom can get us in trouble.

In our world today,

I think most people want to be in a committed relationship where it goes well,

Where we're finding happiness and joy and good times with this other person.

But once we spend time with a person,

We do get to know them.

And the truth is that predictability may seem boring.

Because obviously if we met someone else and it was a new relationship,

We'd get to find out all new things about them and be so exciting and thrilling.

But after time,

One or two things will happen.

We'll find this new person boring,

Just like we were feeling with a partner.

And more importantly,

We'll probably lose our partner because we cheated on them.

And that will cause severe damage to our current relationship that was going well.

So the big question is,

How does this relate to our happiness?

I get it.

Being bored can get me in trouble because I may make choices to become unbored that have consequences.

But how does this relate to my overall happiness?

I mean,

Yes,

There's consequences,

But sometimes it's fun.

And even the consequences are worth it because it brought a little bit of thrill to my boring life.

What I'd like to do next is compare physical health to happiness health.

I think the steps and principles that keep us physically healthy are very similar to the steps that keep us psychologically healthy.

Have you ever been to a buffet where there's a variety of choices and you can eat whatever you want and as much as you want?

I'm sure we've all been to a buffet before and we know what it's like.

There's lots of choices there.

There's salads,

There's meats,

There's pastas,

And there's lots of sweet things we can choose from.

Well,

If you've ever been on a cruise,

I think you'll realize that that probably is why they're popular because you can eat all the food you want,

Anything you want,

And as much as you want.

And we're probably,

If we're not in any way considering about the consequences of our choices,

Going to eat the things that taste the best.

That's how we're wired.

We're going to go after those things that taste good.

But having a few experiences of going after what exactly what we want and realizing the consequences,

Getting sick,

Putting on weight,

Having health concerns,

Perhaps we'll stop doing that because we realize it's just not worth it.

And when you meet people that are very healthy,

You'll see they eat really well,

Pretty much all the time and no matter where they're at,

Even on a cruise,

They would eat the healthy choices on the menu.

I eat pretty healthy myself and it's kind of funny when I go to a restaurant,

Say with friends,

And I order something and when they bring the dishes to people,

They almost always take my dish to a woman thinking,

Well,

That's what a woman would order.

But I say,

No,

No,

That's mine over here,

Please.

And I think they're a little confused because I'm a six foot tall guy ordering the salad.

But I do that because it keeps me healthy and I've learned we are what we eat.

So I want to eat things that are good for my body and then I have good consequences from that.

My food may not be as exciting.

It may be in quotes,

Even boring compared to something else on the menu or what other people around me are ordering.

But I actually like it because my body has gotten used to eating this type of food.

It's really the same thing that happens with our psychological health and our happiness.

As everything we eat affects us,

Everything,

Everything that enters our mouth is going to impact our health,

Either good or bad.

It's going to affect our body,

Everything.

It's the same thing with everything we expose ourself to.

Every event,

Every thought we have,

Everything we watch on our phones,

Every conversation we have,

It is going to impact us.

And there are things that are far more exciting than just being happy.

I know that sounds funny,

But at the deepest level,

Happiness isn't about laughing hysterically and being constantly in high spirits.

Happiness is far more about being peaceful and being calm inside and being at peace with the world and looking outside and saying,

Life is good.

That's happiness.

Let me use an example to illustrate this.

I live fairly close to the ocean and I like watching sunsets.

So periodically I'll go over to the ocean and go watch the sunset and it's beautiful.

But if you compared watching the sunset,

Say,

To instead going to a bar that night,

Meeting someone new and perhaps being able to sleep with them,

Wouldn't the second be more exciting?

Yeah,

It would be,

But what are the effects of doing one or the other?

If I watch the sunset and I enjoy it and my heart just feels at peace with the world and the universe,

That's a good afterglow feeling.

If instead I had made the choice to go to the bar,

Meet someone new,

Maybe even slept with them that night,

What are all the potential negative consequences that could come from that?

There are lots of them,

Particularly if I'm in a committed relationship and I do that,

That would hurt the person that I care for.

So that's why we don't do the one and we do the other.

The one may be more exciting.

The one may be more thrilling.

But what catches us is it comes with lots of negative consequences and everything we do matters,

Everything.

There's no way I can iterate that enough.

So we have to ask ourselves this,

Is what I'm doing right now feeding my soul?

Or is what I'm doing right now going to tear down my soul?

If we spend two hours a night watching the news versus spending two hours a night reading a good book,

What kind of impact is that going to have on our lives?

The second one may be harder,

It may be boring,

But it's good for our soul.

And the good news is we get used to things.

If we don't eat sweets,

We don't crave them that much.

We really don't.

It's when we start having them,

We crave them.

It's the same way with boredom.

If we do things that take away the boredom,

We're going to crave them more.

That's why people get addicted to drugs and keep going back to them because they hate the way they feel when they're not on the drug.

And often,

Besides the pain inside of them,

What pushes them back to the drugs is the boredom.

But the really good news is what may at first seem like boredom with time will feel like peace.

And a peace that truly passes all understanding.

We truly can have peaceful,

Beautiful lives,

But we have to be so careful with the boredom.

So I want to spend the remainder of the podcast talking about one very specific technique to help with the boredom.

We all can struggle with boredom,

But we struggle with boredom in very different ways.

Some of us may turn to the news.

Some of us may turn to booze.

Some of us may turn to sex.

Some of us may turn to watching videos on one of our favorite apps.

A friend of mine retired and I asked him what he was doing with his time and he talked about how he'd get bored so he'd get on YouTube and watch crashes of cars and accidents.

So the first thing you have to do is determine what do I turn to when I'm bored,

Whatever it may be.

It could be anything,

But figure out what do you turn to when you're bored and you realize also besides that,

That this thing you're turning to isn't healthy for you.

And the way to determine that is after you do it,

You don't feel better.

You feel worse.

Now,

For someone else,

They can do that exact same activity and be fine.

Like someone may go to Vegas and have a wonderful time and really enjoy it.

But someone else may go to Vegas and have a horrible experience,

Yes,

An exciting time,

But end up having a truly awful experience with lots of consequences.

So once you've identified what you turn to when you're bored,

And number two,

That you know that what you turn to is unhealthy,

Then you really are well aware of that this is unhealthy for you.

So what you do is I'm going to stop turning to this and take a break from this for a very long time,

However long it takes to not be pulled in anymore.

Because once we get pulled in,

For example,

Let's say,

Again,

We surf on some app on our phone,

Once it's got us,

It can have us for hours and hours.

It's amazing the power of addictions or things that we turn to to turn off the boredom.

They can trap us,

Grab us,

And have us.

And once we go down that rabbit hole,

It can take a long time to come out of it.

And when we do,

There's often so much collateral damage.

So the best option to do is stop doing that activity.

If someone else,

Again,

Can go to Las Vegas and be fine,

Let them,

But if you can't,

Don't go there.

And remember,

It's not about being smart.

It's not about being strong.

It's about self-awareness.

Ada Lovelace was as smart as you can get.

As humans,

We're not going to get smarter than her,

And yet she got caught up in the boredom of gambling with horses.

The best thing we can do is be aware of what is something that can get us and just stay away from it.

And instead,

What will happen is when we really acknowledge,

Yes,

This is not good for me,

And if I do this,

It is going to lead me down the path of pain and suffering.

Instead,

We'll do the thing that may,

In quotes,

Seem boring,

But we'll do that because we know in the long run,

It's going to lead us down to the path of happiness and joy and peacefulness.

See,

Each day,

Each moment,

We're making choices whether to be happy or unhappy,

And these choices have consequences,

Good or bad,

But we have to be self-aware and say,

Okay,

I get it.

Boredom is a very strong emotion,

And I need to find ways of addressing my boredom without feeding it its drug,

Because once we feed it its drug,

Then we're going down the path of suffering,

And we don't need to suffer.

We truly all can have beautiful lives,

And sometimes it can be very challenging,

But if we do this one day at a time,

One breath at a time,

We'll find that the boredom has turned into a beautiful,

Wonderful life.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Helpful. Alleviating boredom

Very insightful & inspiring talk that I needed. Thank you.

My way of distracting myself from boredom is binge watching Netflix and other entertainment apps. It’s very hot outside to spend time in the garden so I turn my attention to the inside of my house. I could be completing the list of things that would make my house a reflection of me. But instead I’m lonely and bored, so I watch brilliant tv series all day. Why am I stuck? What am I avoiding? The consequences are I’m not living my life.

I have the same exact banana split story! Your talks are amazing and I can relate to each and every one on some level. Thanks Dr Puff!

Thank you 🙏