Asked by 12 year old Girl
Boredom occurs due to lack of progress. What happens usually is that we tend to focus on one part or one aspect of our nature at the expense of others. This in itself is alright provided we can keep improving in that area. This improvement may be in the sphere of knowledge or else application. For example, if we are studying then we can change different subjects or go deeper into a subject by raising questions beyond the standard answers provided by the book. However the busy curriculum of studies keeps us tied to stock answers allowing little time for creativity. Besides if one begins to enter into the competitive mode and focus on marks in comparison with others then the whole activity gets derailed into another direction and one loses the joy of learning for the sake of learning. Hence boredom tends to set in due to engaging in the same mechanical activity again and again in a fixed routine.
The other option is to cultivate hobbies like games, dancing or other extra curricular activities. If the activity is creative so much the better.
The last though not always a good option is to keep a day for breaking the routine when one does something different on that day than on regular days, like having a family outing, watching an interesting teleshow or movie or reading a good book.
The best solution however is to use the moment of boredom (as well as loneliness) is to be quiet and search for the meaning and purpose of one’s life, to discover oneself and contemplate the great mysteries of existence. The Mother advices us thus.
‘How often there is a kind of emptiness in the course of life, an unoccupied moment, a few minutes, sometimes more. And what do you do? Immediately you try to distract yourself, and you invent some foolishness or other to pass your time. That is a common fact. All men, from the youngest to the oldest, spend most of their time in trying not to be bored. Their pet aversion is boredom and the way to escape from boredom is to act foolishly.
Well, there is a better way than thatāto remember.
When you have a little time, whether it is one hour or a few minutes, tell yourself, “At last, I have some time to concentrate, to collect myself, to relive the purpose of my life, to offer myself to the True and the Eternal.” If you took care to do this each time you are not harassed by outer circumstances, you would find out that you were advancing very quickly on the path. Instead of wasting your time in chattering, in doing useless things, reading things that lower the consciousnessāto choose only the best cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities which are much more seriousāinstead of trying to make yourself giddy, to make time, that is already so short, still shorter only to realise at the end of your life that you have lost three-quarters of your chanceāthen you want to put in double time, but that does not workāis better to be moderate, balanced, patient, quiet, but never to lose an opportunity that is given to you, that is to say, to utilise for the true purpose the unoccupied moment before you.
When you have nothing to do, you become restless, you run about, you meet friends, you take a walk, to speak only of the best; I am not referring to things that are obviously not to be done. Instead of that, sit down quietly before the sky, before the sea or under trees, whatever is possible (here you have all of them) and try to realise one of these thingsāto understand why you live, to learn how you must live, to ponder over what you want to do and what should be done, what is the best way of escaping from the ignorance and falsehood and pain in which you live.’
16 May 1958
Lots of Love
Alok Da
