It often happens that as a child we get interested in a subject or develop an area of interest. But as we grow towards adulthood the subject no more interests us. This may be because of the way it is generally taught, especially in academics oriented institutions. If that be the case you can try learning it from other sources.
Sometimes there is a genuine change of interest and it may help to take a relook at what is your dream now and then see how it can be pursued under the present circumstances.
A third reason for lack of interest at your age is an undercurrent of depression. Here best would be to address the issues without giving too much importance to the state itself. It means to look into what is troubling you and deal with that rather than enter into self-pity.
Most important is to keep yourself as busy with different activities including exercises, especially sports or raquet game if possible, leaving little time to think too much about negative things as paying attention to these waves of nature or flowing too much with them tends to make it worse. If instead one focuses on positive things happening in the life, then these waves just pass away giving rise to positive feelings.
One reason for diminution of the joy of life is an absence of progress. That is why it is good to have some creative hobby, to find something creative to keep a perpetual interest in life, something like a goal, an aim which one can look forward to, for keeping oneself moving towards the future. And when moments of loneliness and boredom arise, then instead of thinking about oneself and the problems to search for the deeper truths of life.
The Mother advices:
‘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 that—to 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 consciousness—to choose only the best cases, I am not speaking of other imbecilities which are much more serious—instead 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 chance—then you want to put in double time, but that does not work—is 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 things—to 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.’
Affectionately,
Alok Da
