Why Boredom Is a Blessing

You are in the classroom and your teacher is showing you a power-point presentation when you see that small icon on the corner which shows 10 out of 75 slides. Immediately, You are thinking how long will you be bored before you can escape the class. Sometimes 10 minutes seem like an hour long and 3 hour movie just like 30 minutes, why so? It’s because you get bored of doing something that either disinterests you or you’ve been doing it since a long time or due to repetition.   

Now you must be wondering that why does my topic say it is a blessing?

“Bored people feel that their actions are meaningless and so they are motivated to engage in meaningful behavior, If pro social behavior fulfills this requirement, boredom promotes pro-social behavior.” said Dr Wijnand van Tilburg, from the University of Limerick. “Boredom stimulates the search for better ways to things like nothing else does.” said Mr savage from an online life coach site.

Something similar happened in my case. So I had shifted from India to Dubai and I had 4 months of vacation until my school started in august end. I had all the time in the world to do things that I wished to do when I was giving my IGCSE boards. However, instead I just procrastinated from doing the jobs I wanted to do, which lead me to boredom. I was so bored that all I used to do was scroll down any other social media. One day while scrolling, I saw an advertisement on a site called wordpress. I clicked on it and it said sign up, so i did with no intention of doing a blog.

So there I had a blog in my name, I’ve had plenty of writing so I posted one of it on the blog. Out of nowhere, people started appreciating my writing and I was astonished as I never thought I had actually written so well! I hit 100 followers and 200 likes on my blog in less than a month.

Same happened with sir Isaac Newton, he was bored being in laboratory environment which is why he went to take a stroll in the garden and while sitting under the tree he discovered gravity.

Researchers in University of Louisville  say that “boredom helps to restore the perception that one’s activities are meaningful or significant,” meaning it acts as a regulatory state that keeps one in line with one’s projects. In the absence of boredom, one would remain trapped in unfulfilling situations, and miss out on many emotionally, cognitively, and socially rewarding experiences. Boredom is both a warning that we are not doing what we want to be doing as well as a ‘push’ that motivates us to switch goals and projects.

Boredom results in you trying to approach something that is more meaningful or interesting and that next time you prevent to be bored by doing something different. It encourages people to explore because it signals that your current situation is lacking so it’s kind of a push to seek out something new. And that is why boredom is a blessing.