3 Reasons Why Boredom is the Secret Ingredient to Unlock Creativity

As I was preparing for my GCSE examinations about a month ago, I found myself desiring something rather bizarre. 

Boredom.

Sitting on my desk, attempting questions upon questions, I daydreamed about being bored someday, hoping that one day in the foreseeable future I’d be sitting or lying in my bed for hours on end without the expectation or the plan of doing anything at all. 

The thought of being bored was heavenly indeed. 

Is Boredom a No Go Area ?

However, this weird craving led me to another realization: 

We live in a time where we can’t be bored. It’s not normal to be a in a psychological state characterized by a perceived lack of interest or stimulation in one’s surroundings. On the contrary we are to some extent shamed for pressing the pause button, for not grinding 24/7 or abandoning the hustle culture. 

My Experience 

I still remember the shock on my teacher’s face as I told him, sitting in my usual spot at the school library attempting maths homework, that I hadn’t revised in a week since I had just finished my mock exams. He looked at me as if I had uttered the most ridiculous words, covering the horror on his face with a muted “Oh really?”. Now I know that his reaction may be justifiable; I was (not entirely proudly now that I look back at it) the book worm at school, but still surely a week’s worth of break is common practice at high school. Safe to say that encounter made feel slightly guilty for the breather, nonetheless. This only made me realize that stopping, pausing, breathing is on the other hand not a common practice.   

Why is Boredom negatively perceived? 

Boredom is simply not an option. 

Because let’s face it, a sense of dullness in the atmosphere is quite uncomfortable and unsettling, especially if you have the option to not be bored. We can’t possibly be dissatisfied or restless when the abundance of content and stimulation can flood our minds, keeping them engaged, rotting them at a negligible pace. 

New Ways To Look At Boredom

However, it is about time we reframe our understanding of this much-maligned state of mind. Far from being a mere inconvenience, boredom plays a crucial role in fostering creativity, self-reflection, and personal growth. 

I really romanticize blocking and creating time for just being bored as at night when my house is silent because clearly at one in the morning everyone would be fast asleep, I find myself really content staring into the dark mostly towards the blank ceiling. Now, I could be as happily and predictably scrolling my phone which at the time of me staring would be on my side table… but I choose not to. 

Here’s why: 

Reason # 1

Having no stimulation at all does a couple of things for me. In the presence of absolutely nothing, I find time to reflect and reconsider; slowing down gives me time to be think over things I often throw on the back burner or often forget to properly process in time. A prime example are my exams, I truly didn’t digest how my exams went until well after my GCSEs were over and forgotten by many. 

Reason # 2

Also, boredom is excellent for creativity. If you were to take a guess about things that boredom, made me do, you’ be absolutely correct in guessing that blogging was one of my few ideas that made it out of my mind. But, yes, it is great for idea generation because you are forced to run into the wilderness of your brain and somehow force the unrealistic and farfetched ideas to even remotely sound reasonable and doable.  

Fake it until you make it after all. 

Reason # 3

And lastly for me the feeling of having nothing to do is so refreshing and recharging even as a 16-year-old. Gosh! I only feel for my parents; how much they’d love to be bored. The over stimulation, never ending stream of content, activities and events only work to drain us, regardless of the fact that some of us may be extroverts or introverts, we all need recharging and boredom does exactly that. It makes space for more; it refills us with more to give and more to take. 

However, this is not to say that boredom can’t be perceived differently. Upon asking my friends and other students, it is safe to say that having nothing to do has different impact on different individuals. Some of the people asked seemed to despise it, finding different ways to distract themselves or rather keep themselves engaged, be it deep cleaning their room, watching a film or reading books. Others fill their time with creative endeavors such as singing or even diving back into an imaginary story (you know who you are). 

Conclusion 

So long story short, I think boredom isn’t a dead-end, but more like a road that leads to different paths. It is more than we are forced to perceive and it definitely not an adverse emotion.  

Raniya Abrar