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Mojo Monday - The Unexpected Side Effects of Boredom with Carly Taylor · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Cully Talley here. Welcome to you. This
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: week's My Joe Monday. So we're going to talk about
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: boredom today. When I was a kid growing up in
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, boredom it was pretty much a
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: regular state. And people that come from I grew up
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in that era will relate to this. Because there was
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: no phone in my pocket, there was no streaming TV,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: no constant feed of notifications. If there was nothing to do,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: there was literally nothing to do. Well that's what it
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: felt like anyway, And I remember complaining to my mother
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: that I was bored and flicking through the same books
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: I'd already read, or riding my bike to just nowhere
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: in particular, or playing handball against the wall of the
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: house for hours. You had no choice but to be bored,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: whether you liked it or not. It was just part
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: of life. But what I wouldn't have known back then
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is that this inevitable boredom was quietly shaping my mind.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: So I invented games and used my imagination and asked
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: questions and probably spent and hassled my mother a lot,
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: spent more time with her, and sometimes I was just
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: with my own thoughts. And I even remember sitting on
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: the school bus and staring out the window, getting kind
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: of lost in day dreams. And I remember actually quite
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: enjoying that. And I didn't have a word for it then,
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: but I did find it quite peaceful. But if fast
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: forward to today, I'm sounding like an old person going
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: back in my day. Man, if you do fast forward
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: to today, boredom barely gets a foot in the door.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: So there are endless on demand entertainment. And I'm not
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: singling out kids here or teenagers here at all, because
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: all of us can be entertained twenty four to seven
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: if we allow ourselves to be swept up in it.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: And most of us are me included. So many of
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: you who are from my generation can remember having no
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: choice but to experience boredom. But now even five minutes
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: without stimulation creates this almost automatic urge to fill the time,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: so every pause gets patched over with a scroll or
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: a podcast or a YouTube clip or music in our ears. Look, technology,
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: without a doubt has given us some amazing tools, but
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: it's also training us to feel uncomfortable and agitated with stillness.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: So next time you're in a doctor's waiting room, or
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: standing in line for a coffee or waiting at a
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: bus stop. Just notice what happens. Notice your thoughts, notice
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that the feelings in your body. Because for me, the
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: urge to check my phone it just appears automatically. It's
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: that the sudden space of time almost seems abnormal and
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: must be felled. And recently I came across a book
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: and there was a chapter in the book called the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Nature and Value of Boredom, And it turns out boredom
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: isn't the enemy. It's actually a signal. It's a nudge
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: from our mind saying this moment lacks meaning for you
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: find something that matters. So think about that. The agitated
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: feeling you get could be a chance to find meaning
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: in this moment. So boredom's role is motivational. So it
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: pushes us to re engage with life, not just with
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: any activity, but with something purposeful. And that doesn't have
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: to be anything big. It could be anything from noticing
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: your surroundings with curiosity, or having a quick conversation with
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: a stranger, or just being with your thoughts. Because if
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: we're all plugging that gap with quick entertainment, we actually
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: miss that process. I'm sure, we get relief, but we
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: miss the chance to find something truly meaningful. And let's
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: be honest, there are some meaningful content on social media,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: without a doubt, but a lot of it is just noise.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: And Steve Job puts it really well. Boredom allows one
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: to indulge in curiosity, and out of curiosity comes everything.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Science tells us that when the mind is overloaded with input,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it wanders, It daydreams, it connects dots that usually stay apart,
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: and that's where creativity and problem solving and joy and
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: fresh perspective live. So this very episode was born out
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: of boredom. So I was in a tech free, music
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: free sauna deliberately intentionally for twenty five minutes. There was
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: nothing just but me and the heat, and my mind
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: wandered and the idea for this episode kind of popped up,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: along with a few others. And I wouldn't have had
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that had I been distracted. And the stoics actually back
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: this up. They believed peace and clarity comes from focusing
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: your attention on what you can control, and boredom is
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a great place to practice that. So you can't control
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: the discomfort, but you can choose where you place your
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: focus next. And that's why I've been experimenting with something
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: that I call intentional boredom. And I thought that I
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: was being really clever and I actually thought up that
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: term intentional boredom in the sauna. But of course it
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: turns out, like many creative ideas, that it's already been taken,
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: so it's actually a thing, intentional boredom. So I was like, damn,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: but look here, here's what it means. Creating moments in
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the day when you're not trying to fill the space,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: so no phone, no TV, to do lists, just sitting, walking, exercising,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: folding laundry or sweating it out in the sauna without
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: extra noise. And at first it can feel uncomfortable and
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: you'll fidget and your brain will search for stimulation because
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: that's what it's used to. But if you ride that
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: urge wave, something can shift. Ideas start bubbling up, problems
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: start to be solved. Maybe you think of a holiday
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: to plan, or a work project or a friend that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: you want to connect with, or maybe you think of
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the small things that you're grateful for, so it's almost
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: like your mind can feel clearer. So here's my challenge
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: for you this week, pick one pocket of time, whether
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: it's ten or fifteen minutes, and put all your inputs away.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Let boredom in like ride that urge to fill it
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: and notice what comes up. Even if it's just like, oh,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: this is boring, just notice that with curiosity and then
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: notice what happens next, because we don't have to be
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: entertained every second, and sometimes the most important thoughts, the
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: best ideas, and the clearest sense of direction arrive in
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: these quiet spaces that we usually rush to feel. So
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: boredom isn't a gap to close, it's actually a doorway
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: to walk through. So I hope you got value from this.
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: It's something that really fascinates me, the fact, and I
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: kind of feel like there is a lot of potential
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: out there that's not going to be reached because we
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: don't allow ourselves this space to just think and be still.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: And if you enjoyed it, please pass it on. And
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: if you didn't, if you actually were bored by this,
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: then congratulations, you've just had your little dose of intentional boredom.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: So I have a great week everyone, I'll catch you
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: next week. So yeah,