A CURE FOR BOREDOM

Ecclesiastes 9:10 “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor wisdom.”

Boredom is a combination of weariness, listlessness, apathy and unconcern that causes a person to feel like doing nothing. Related words include dreariness, flatness, lethargic, and dull. To the bored person, the world is all shades of gray. When you are bored, there is nothing to do because there is nothing to do that matters. To the younger generation, one word encapsulates boredom, the all-purpose answer, “Whatever.” “Did you hear what I said?” “Whatever.” “I thought that was a great movie.” “Whatever.” The word “whatever” in that sense means, “I don’t even care enough to give you an answer.”

There are two primary causes of boredom. The first is over-stimulation. We live in a society that encourages us to believe that more is better. If a little of anything is good, then more will always be better. If one drink is good, two is better, and five will send you to heaven. If one pill helps, two is a kicker, three is a party, and five will knock you out. We see this in relationships as people jump from one person to another. We see it in the pressure to constantly move “up the ladder,” so people hop from one job to another, hoping to find the perfect fit. And we move from city to city, and from church to church. We make friends, keep them for a while, get to know them, and then we move on to someone else. Advertisers prey on this tendency when they urge us to buy more, buy new, and buy now. We are so bombarded with images, with lights and sound and noise that we’ve grown accustomed to it. According to the Center for Media Education, most children watch three to four hours of TV a day, approximately 28 hours per week. “Watching TV is the #1 after-school activity for 6 to 17 year olds. Each year most children spend about 1,500 hours in front of the TV and 900 hours in the classroom. By age 70, most people will have spent about ten years watching TV.” By age 21 the average viewer will have seen one million TV commercials. “Children who watch four or more hours of TV per day spend less time on school work, have poorer reading skills, play less well with friends, and have fewer hobbies than children who watch less TV.” We are so over-stimulated by TV, radio, music, movies, the Internet, and by video games, that we are hyped up, tense, wound up tight, and as a result, easily bored and quickly distracted.

The second cause of boredom is under-commitment. This is partly a result of the massive over-stimulation. Too many people live at the 20% level of commitment. We’re like the man who, when asked what he believed, replied, “A little bit of everything.” We are like customers in a cafeteria line. We have a “little of this” and a “little of that” and not much of anything. We are 20% committed to our marriage, 20% committed to our work, 20% committed to our relationships, 20% committed to our families, 20% committed to our careers, 20% committed to our church, and we end up being 20% committed to Jesus Christ. No wonder we are frustrated. No wonder we are antsy. No wonder we are bored.

Underneath all this is a deeper problem. Boredom comes from an excessive self-focus. Bored people are essentially selfish people who view the universe through their own stunted perspective. The reason you are bored is because you have become a boring person. To be truthful, you are bored with yourself. The problem is not “out there” somewhere. Look inside if you want the answer. Lest I be misunderstood, I do not think busyness is the answer to boredom. Busy people are often very bored. They use their busyness to mask their inner emptiness.

Folk singer Joan Baez once remarked, “You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die, or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live now.” If you are bored, it is because you have chosen to live a boring life. Boredom is not an issue of bad circumstances. It’s a disease of the soul caused by excessive self-focus. And it comes from being over-stimulated and under-committed. Life is never boring when you commit yourself 100% to Jesus Christ.

Are you bored with life? Crawl out of yourself and make a new commitment to the Lord. Reach outside yourself to help someone less fortunate and your perspective on life will radically change. Boredom is a warning sign that we are living for self when we ought to be living for God.