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Wednesday 24 November 2010

The dangerous spiral of boredom

Today started pretty innocuously, much the same as any other. And there lay the problem.  As the day progressed I developed a terrible sense of boredom. It was ok at first. Whilst I worked monotonously away, my brain tucked itself away and occupied itself reading magazines, planning blog posts and generally keeping itself out of trouble.

Unfortunately, my brain soon lost interest in it's solo pursuits and suddenly became aware of how under-used it currently was. An annoying nagging began chomping at my ears and demands for proper use filled my senses.

The clock ticked slowly and heavily toward home-time, but by now my brain had reached a state of hyper-boredom rivelled only by the confined jitterings of a five year old on a long car-drive.

By the time I was leaving work I was trying to placate my brain with promises of enthralling activity when I got home - exciting trips to the local rock-climbing wall; riotous socials with friends; finally teaching myself Mandarin... (ok, maybe the last one isn't that exciting).

The thing about boredom, the ironic thing, is that when you do have free time you're so drained by sheer boredom, that you spend your evening slobbed out on the couch watching crappy soaps and starting to merge into the upholstery like some half-human half-Ikea creature.

This is the problem with boredom. It's a perpetual cycle. After a full, dull day vegetating at your desk you go home and continue vegetating there, instead of looking for more exciting careers.  Before you know it you start finding it amusing when people describe their feelings followed by '.com' (for example, 'I'm bored.com') as your own sense of creativity is a shrivelled raisin of a memory.

I don't know why I'm attracted to boring jobs (I should probably stop applying for them, that would help), but I suspect it's from a deep-rooted fear of actually getting a Proper Job with Responsibility.

2 comments:

Paula said...

Who needs responsibility in a job anyway...you'd only replace boredom with stress. Choose your poison I suppose!

Tiredness (i.e. that associated with looking after three children 6 and under and a large four bedroom house) works rather like boredom. Once the kids are in bed I just vegetate on the sofa and waste time on the Internet instead of doing all the things I moan I never have time to do like read, knit or sew!

Daft aren't we!

Lainey said...

If wasn't for the fact that a decent wage is negatively associated with boring jobs I'd agree!

I guess with knitting and sewing there is a greater risk of going wrong if you're tired, and an evening spent unpicking mistakes is worse than an evening of vegetation (unless you're a gardener).