From Boredom To Happiness - The Devil Is In The Details

Feeling Blah? Are you on the train of boredom? Get ready, the next stop is Happiness. We all have moments of boredom that come and go like a headache. Why wait for the boredom to pass. Be proactive and take the pill of detailed mindfulness. All aboard! The enthusiasm train is about to depart.

Transcript

When boredom strikes,

Or when boredom attacks,

Or when boredom has just arisen,

It's settled in.

It's been there for a little bit of time.

It's been there for some time.

You're not quite sure when it arose.

It's kind of like a headache that you're suddenly aware you have a headache.

Fortunately,

It disappears at some point on its own,

And suddenly you become aware,

Oh,

I had a headache before,

I don't have it now.

Fortunately,

Most of the time we're aware of what's happening.

Why not?

Sometimes we're driving and we forget to get off at the exit.

We were planning to get off.

We know we were awake.

We were driving the whole time.

Where did we go?

So,

When you become aware that boredom is there,

It rises up to different levels.

And the sooner you catch it,

The easier it is to allow it to dissipate on its own,

Being replaced by something else.

Something that's certainly more interesting than sitting around and sensing boredom.

So,

One of the easy antidotes to boredom is focused attention on detail.

I first became aware of this at a workshop lecture that I had gone to,

And the speaker was not particularly interesting.

Or,

At least to me,

He didn't seem interesting.

It was a subject I was interested in.

But his presentation,

What he was saying,

His mannerisms,

His voice,

I just was bored.

So,

I started watching what he was doing.

As my mind was absorbing some of the words,

I started watching his hands.

Were his hands moving?

It didn't matter if they were or not.

I was just watching and noting what were his hands doing.

Then I started noticing his lips as they were moving,

And his facial expressions,

And whether he turned his head or not,

And if he moved his arms.

And all of the detail that I could see in the movement,

Anything that was moving,

I started to notice.

Then I started to look at the background behind him,

And started to see the detail in the wall behind him,

In the desk that was there,

In the left turn that he was standing behind sometimes,

The way he paced up and back.

And as I fell into the detail of what I was watching,

All of a sudden the bottom,

Like the headache,

Was gone.

And I started paying really undivided attention to the words as they were flowing through my awareness.

And what had arisen as a boring lecture turned out to be quite interesting.

Now this technique of detail as an antidote to boredom can be used anywhere.

Sitting in a car while somebody else is driving,

Listening to birds in the background,

Which are quite interesting,

They grab your attention.

When I used to go fishing,

I always liked the fishing fresh water with a float or a barber that you could see jiggling if the fish was pulling on the bait underneath the water where you couldn't see the fish.

The kind of fishing I really didn't connect with so much was saltwater fishing,

Where you drop your line down in the water we used to go fishing off Lighthouse Point up near Jones Beach in New York,

And then in the acid waters off in New Jersey.

So you drop your line down and you can't see it.

There's no barber and you can kind of feel the line if you get some vibration on the line but you got the weight bobbing,

You know,

Not bobbing but you know bouncing a little bit off the bottom because the boat's drifting.

I found it really difficult.

Maybe my dexterity,

My sense of touch wasn't developed.

Every now and then a fish would bite and you'd all of a sudden,

Your line would get yanked and you knew you had a fish,

But there was no barber to watch I didn't find it.

Quite the interest.

So this is before my discovery of detail.

And I just wasn't aware of it.

Good.

How you doing.

Alright so right now.

While I'm recording.

I'm seeing the wood fence.

On top of a very short concrete built bridge over canal.

And the word is looks like four by fours on the bottom.

And then a post four by fours and a two by four in the middle.

And then to two by fours at right angles at the top,

Supporting it.

And this cross pieces about every,

Maybe three feet before by fours coming up.

So it looks pretty substantial.

So there was a window.

In my thinking even about boredom or not.

And I fell into the description of what I was seeing,

I had direct experience of seeing describing without evaluating.

So another aspect of the,

The detail review the detail examination.

The shift is away from commentary.

To direct experience.

So if you think about it.

You can only be bored.

If you're commenting on what you're sensing as boredom.

So what is boredom.

I was saying before a lack of interest.

Lack of appreciation.

Boredom is a continual commentary on not liking,

Not being interested,

Not being in direct experience,

Not being connected.

And continually having the thought sensation,

Feeling emotion of I'm bored.

There's just nothing.

My mind is not connecting to anything.

So another possibility of reducing the boredom.

Another antidote is to focus on the boredom.

If you're focusing on the boredom.

You can't remain bored.

Because now your attention is on the boredom,

Not on the dissatisfaction about being bored.

So precisely,

Where's the boredom?

What's it feel like?

Try and find it.

And you'll see it disappears while you're looking for it.

It may come back when you stop looking.

You might still be in that,

In that hole.

But while you're looking for it,

It's going to disappear.

A review.

When you're bored and you want to drop it,

Here's the antidote.

Pay attention to detail of anything.

While you're paying attention to the detail,

You're not bored because you're having direct experience of the detail that you're either seeing,

Hearing,

Touching,

Smelling,

Tasting.

And the boredom will at least momentarily disappear.

The sooner that you become aware that boredom has started to arise,

The sooner you notice it,

Don't let it sit.

Immediately switch over to detail.

You can even place detail on what the boredom feels like,

As long as you're placing detail on it,

And not a commentary or evaluating.

Because boredom basically is just a continual dissatisfaction with the state that you find yourself in,

Which is not being interested,

Not being connected,

Not having direct experience,

But having only commentary.

And the commentary is not good.

That's why you're bored.

You want things to feel better.

Your ego is not satisfied with,

It doesn't like the feeling,

So it turns boredom on.

So the detail can be applied to,

To any,

Any circumstance.

Walking when,

You know,

Some beautiful scenery might be around,

And there's.

.

.

Morning.

And there's just in your mind something else happening or the,

You know,

Just one of those bored days,

You've seen the trees before.

Good morning.

You've seen the trees and you've seen the scenery and the sky and,

You know,

You've put your feet in the water or the river that's,

You know,

Never the same twice and it just seems like it's the same river it was yesterday.

And then you can,

You know,

Kind of practice detail.

So,

It works.

Reviews

The sounds in the background are a helpful way for focusing on the details. Thanks for simplifying what is going on when feeling boredom and how to come out of it. The summary is helpful too!