Short story: The bored man
By emptychair
@innertalks (23734)
Australia
May 12, 2022 5:53pm CST
Alf Frergman was in his middle 70's now, and having all day to fill in at home, while his much younger wife was out working, was leaving him feeling very bored, most of the time.
"Why am l bored with my life, and what can l do about it?"
he asked his psychotherapist.
Here is his psychotherapist's answer.
"Boredom lives in an unfulfilled life, which has lost its direction, due to lethargicness of purpose, and losing to doubt, the truth, which never bores, but only ever excites to love life more."
'"Boredom is the root of all evil - the despairing refusal to be oneself.'"
"Soren Kierkegaard, (1813 to 1855) a Danish philosopher, said this."
"You need to be your real self then, and you will not be bored anymore."
At 77, Alf thought that he was now too old to ever do this. He went home, content to remain numb to himself, and so, bored.
Alf had died to himself, and to life, and soon, he really died, and so finally he lost his boredom to the grave.
"Life is never boring, but some people choose to be bored."
Wayne Dyer, (1940 to 2015) a writer, and a self-help counsellor, said this.
He has it all back to front though.
We do not choose boredom. Boredom chooses us.
Alf did not choose to be bored. He chose not to live his life fully.
If we choose to live our life fully, we are then happy, contented, and never bored, with its activity, or not. (i.e. bored with its apparent non-activity)
Only when we are not fully living our life, does the mindset of boredom then come into being, automatically so.
There is no choice; it is the other side of fully living. Then, we are unhappy, bored, discontent, disinterested, in our life.
We need to grab life with two hands, and run with it, rather than preventing it from running with us.
If we feel bored, we need to become more active in life again, and start to connect to it again, rather than still remaining connected to boredom, instead.
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
How we live our own lives, is always in our own hands, if we are actively living, and not just idling in boredom. We, indirectly, like boredom, because we do not then have to live fully. It takes energy, love, life, to live life fully.
We do not choose boredom. Its state is already there, and we just go into its room, but we can decide if we stay in there, in that room of boredom, or not too.
4 people like this
4 responses
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
13 May 22
That's true.
I also have many things to do, but I have trouble deciding which is the best, most important thing for me to do right now, but then, if my wife is home her idea of importance is different than mine...lol...cutting the lawn, shopping.. etc..
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
14 May 22
@Shiva49 Yes, my wife does entertain me, but if she gets bored, she wants me to entertain her then too, or to come up with some place to go, and to visit, and I go and hide in my tunnel then, as it is hard for me to find anything that will satisfy her interests, which are different than mine are.
When they bored the tunnels for the first underground railways here, in Melbourne, before it opened, we were allowed to go inside, and to walk their length. That was an interesting experience, never to be repeated again, now that the trains run in there every day.
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
13 May 22
@innertalks She makes sure you are never bored.
You might have heard of "The Boring Company is an American infrastructure and tunnel construction services company founded by Elon Musk. Its ongoing and proposed projects are designed for intra-city transit systems. TBC has completed two tunnels in Las Vegas for loop travel.
That is another type of boring but staying relevant and useful too!
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
13 May 22
Yes, time is precious.
We all only have so much of it.
My problem is not boredom, as it is sometimes the lack of motivation to do things, or the prioritising of what to do next. I have trouble working out what is the most important thing for me to do right now.
I do not want to waste my time doing trivial things, and yet to work out what is not trivial is no trivial thing either...lol...Balance is needed, as things like housework, exercise, are important, but hard to motivate myself to do, at times.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
13 May 22
@Kandae11 As I get older, I seem to need more and more motivation, and good reasons to do stuff too..lol...
2 people like this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
14 May 22
I more second-guess myself all of the time, to check if what I am doing right now, is really the best use of my time right now.
I have many things that I could do, (so boredom is not an issue) but I stress over if what I am doing is really the best use of my time, right now.
I could "waste" all day, just doing surveys on the internet, for example, for a few dollars, or I could do something more creatively productive, but doesn't earn me anything much, like listening to music, or watching YouTube, or writing something here, on mylot.
I could read a book, and learn something from it, or exercise, and get more fit, but everything takes time, and how can we ever determine the best use of that time, for ourselves, in the long run, or in the short run too?
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
15 May 22
@Shiva49 Yes, importance is in the eye of the beholder though, as some people will value some doings more than others.
Some importances could even be seen as duty, like visiting our loved ones, while they are still around, should be of greater importance, than our mowing the lawn, in my books, but perhaps, not in my wife's books, where the look of the lawn is of great importance to her.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
14 May 22
@innertalks That sense of apportioning time gains traction as we get older.
I evaluate what I set out to do and ask myself - is it really needed now or is anything more important still left undone and needs my immediate attention?
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
13 May 22
I have never really been bored with life.
I was quite busy while working and am now fully retired for four years.
I had cultivated varied interests like sports, general knowledge, and writing as I do here.
Some are wedded to work to an extent they live to work and not work to live.
That is inviting boredom in later years when left with no work and friends.
Boredom leads to depression and then life goes into a tail spin.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
14 May 22
Boredom can be compared to a lack of fulfilment, or a lack of finding meaning too.
If we have found a meaning to life, we seldom get bored with that life, as we are too busy living our meaning, and doing all that we can to do more, in gaining more understanding of the world, as we keep moving through it.
When we drop something that has been giving us meaning though, and do not find anything else to pursue, or to do, that gives us meaning too, we can fall then in a deep hole of lack of meaning, and so boredom fills up that hole then too.
@innertalks (23734)
• Australia
15 May 22
@Shiva49 Yes, free movement is a big part of the quality of life, as is relatively pain-free living too.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28366)
• Singapore
14 May 22
@innertalks One never knows what is in store at the next turn in our lives.
I think as long as I am able to move around, I should be fine. The quality of life takes a severe beating when we have to depend on others for our basic needs.
1 person likes this
