Boredom is a skill (if you can afford it)
Why you need to do nothing - if you are privileged enough.
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Imagine sitting in a room for 15 minutes doing absolutely nothing. The only activity you are allowed is pressing a button placed in front of you. The catch? Each time you press it, you get a painful electric shock.
Would you let yourself idle away the 15 minutes, or would you rather be shocked?
If you choose to do nothing, you could be in the minority. In an experiment by Harvard psychology professor Dan Gilbert, the majority of participants pressed the shock button rather than sit inertly. (DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME.)
Boredom is a skill, says Gilbert's colleague and the author of The Happiness Files: Insights on Work and Life, Arthur C Brooks. "You will have less meaning [in your life] and you will be more depressed if you never are bored." This is because you can only ponder the big, hairy questions – what is the meaning of your existence? What's your purpose in life? – when you shun all external stimuli and force your brain into a state of lull.
At first your head might feel like children screaming inside it: 'get the phone, get the phone'. The culprit is your addiction to dopamine hits. "But it calms down and I feel better," Gilbert says. "And I feel sort of blessed by the end."
