Get Bored to Get Creative
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Boredom gives birth to creativity.
I don’t mean the kind of boredom you feel when you are forced to pretend to be interested in something that’s painfully boring. I mean the kind that slowly seeps into your mind, body, and soul only when you’re more or less alone—with at least a few hours of nothing to do in particular—and you let your mind wander aimlessly.
If you keep pen and paper handy, you can record all the amazing ideas that your subconscious mind automatically comes up with that your conscious mind never could, no matter how hard you tried. Or, you could learn to appreciate “boring,” repetitive tasks for the wonderful opportunities they are to let your mind wander as you do them, again freeing your subconscious mind to give you its gifts. Famous author of murder mystery novels Agatha Christie said she got new ideas for her books while she washed the dishes. Similarly, J.K. Rowling said she came up with her now world-famous fictional character Harry Potter during a long train ride. That was the spark of creativity that made her the first self-made multi-billionaire author in history!
CAPTIVE AUDIENCE BOREDOM v. VOLUNTARY BOREDOM
People should never be boring, that is, force others to listen to them when all interest in whatever they’re going on and on about has been lost. It’s annoying and frustrating to have to politely act as if you are interested when you’re not. If this continues long enough, the experience becomes excruciating and, thus, infuriating. We hate to feel as though someone is needlessly wasting our time. On the other hand, letting yourself voluntarily lapse into boredom when you don’t have to pretend to be interested in anything—now that’s a different experience entirely!
GET BORED TO GET CREATIVE
Unfortunately not too many scientific studies have been done on exactly what happens to our brains when we get bored. But, common sense tells us that our brains hate boredom as much as nature abhors a vacuum. What I do know—and there is legion of anecdotal evidence to support it—is that if you let yourself get bored and try to think of nothing for a while, surprisingly original ideas will automatically come to you seemingly from nowhere. This is exactly why billions of people have been meditating, praying, or practice yoga for thousands of years.
What voluntary boredom, meditation, and the less spontaneous and more repetitive forms of prayer and yoga have in common is they release your mind, heart, and soul to travel freely about the universe and interact, as it were, with the multitude of ideas that are out there. Or, as I believe, with the vast universe and untapped resources stored in our own brains. Dale Carnegie in his classic self help book Think and Grow Rich called it our Sixth Sense. Some people call it divine inspiration or intervention. Ancient Greeks called them the Muses. It has many names. The important thing is to let yourself experience the wonders and benefits of it, which you can never do if you constantly fill every free moment with a micro-acitvity.
GET BORED CONSTRUCTIVELY
1. Set aside at least an hour each day, preferably at the same time, to do absolutely nothing. You can lie down and close your eyes if you want, but don’t fall asleep. (If you are too drowsy, then go ahead and nap. Sufficient rest is more important than boredom for your creativity!) But, when you are fully rested, take an hour to let yourself get bored. Keep a pen and paper handy, but don’t try to force the ideas to come. It never works that way. And, it doesn’t happen every time you let yourself get bored, either. Be patient. Try not to get discouraged. Enjoy the new feeling of voluntary boredom. Fight the urge to use this time to worry about your various problems or to consciously try to find solutions to them. This will block your unconscious mind’s ability to deliver its suggestions to you.
If a worry creeps into your head, don’t dwell on it. Gently clear it out of your mind. Visualize brushing it out of your head like using a broom to remove an dried old leaf that has fallen onto your doorstep. However, if a thought, idea, or memory comes to you that makes you smile or excites you, let your mind go where it wants to with that, as long as it remains pleasant or exciting. Try to keep your thoughts and feelings from getting worrisome or negative. Jot down anything you want to remember immediately after you’ve enjoyed the experience of it. Then, if you still have time, go back to not doing anything and being voluntarily bored.
2. Turn off all electronic devices during this time. Even a brief ring will make you obsess about “who could it be?” and “maybe I should just check real quick.” This totally interrupts the “flow” of your boredom. Creative boredom cannot happen without a profound sense of safety from everything, including minor interruptions.
3. Understand the difference between idleness and boredom. Idleness, especially on the job, is a bad thing. Idleness implies a sort of procrastination of something you are supposed to be doing. Boredom, on the other hand, is something that you can experience even while performing most mundane tasks. However, don’t just hate the tedium of the work! Find ways to make it more interesting, such as inventing more efficient ways of doing expensive and time-consuming tasks. Many companies will pay their employees for such valuable innovations!
CONCLUSION
Boredom can be a very good thing. All you have to do is pick up a biography of any hugely successful person to learn that all of their really big ideas came to them suddenly, as if from nowhere. You will also learn that most of them experienced many long, lonely hours from an early age, so much so that they developed the wonderful habit of imagination. They let their minds wander for hours, often while their bodies were occupied with tedious labor, till they found their way to that magical place where brilliant ideas grow like weeds—just ripe for the plucking!
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