Is life supposed to be boring? At school, we are told to be good learners, and we keep a busy schedule, but once we are out in the real world, life becomes boring.
Life isn’t supposed to be boring, although it often feels that way. As we get older, more of our free time is booked up, and routine tends to take over. We can do a lot to fight boredom, but first, we must take responsibility for our situation and do what we can to spice up our lives and make them more fun.
Life gets boring, especially as an adult with lots of responsibilities; at the same time, we might not be able to change the world, but we can control our response to it. If you don’t want to live a boring life, you need to change things up.
Keep reading because we will talk about 12 ways to make your time more valuable, so life doesn’t seem boring.
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1) With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility
It is your life, and you must live it. While we can debate what living life right is all about, it is undeniable that you are responsible for yourself and the life you live. If you wanted to, you could quit your job, pack up all your stuff and move across the country. Of course, no one knows how that will work out for you, but it is possible.
We are all in control of ourselves; we can move our bodies however we like and do whatever we want.
But this freedom comes with great responsibility; if you hurt others, that is on you. More importantly, if you let yourself down, that is also on you. If you live a boring life, that is your fault because you aren’t doing anything to make it more interesting.
2) If it is Meant To Be It Is Up To Me
Growing up, I would often wait for things to happen, I felt like the future was determined, and if something extraordinary were to come along, it would happen, and I would go along for the ride. But as I got older, I realized that that didn’t make much sense because I kept on waiting, but nothing interesting ever happened.
Once you realize that you are in control, or at least that only you can change your life, then you must be the force of change you wish to see in the world.
If you want a better job, you need to look for it; if you want a better relationship, you need to work at it.
Sticking to the point, if you want something, you need to be willing to chase it because otherwise, it will not come. Life will always be boring if you aren’t chasing after what you want. Put another way; we can get what we want if we take fate into our own hands.
3) There Is No Meaning Out There, Meaning Is Up To Us
For some people, it might be challenging to accept that there is no real meaning for us other than to survive and potentially reproduce. But beyond those biological factors, there isn’t any objective reason for us to be here.
Please don’t take this the wrong way; I’m not saying life is meaningless in a depressing way. Rather meaning is something that we must come up with on our own. No one else can tell us what our life is supposed to be about. Other people may comment on religious or cultural reasons why we are here, but those are often just ideas pulled out of the air.
When it comes down to it, the only person who can create meaning for you is yourself.
You are locked into your body while you are on earth, so you need to make the most out of the situation. Life can seem boring if we don’t have a framework for sense-making, so work towards making sense where you can, and the boredom will go away.
4) It is All a Choice, No Matter What You Choose
Choosing not to do something is the same as choosing to do something. Often we associate taking action with making a decision or choice, but the opposite is also true. Our lack of action is a choice just the same. You might be more easily able to justify a lack of effort to yourself, but that doesn’t make it any better for you in the long run.
If we choose to wait for the world to give us what we want, we will likely be waiting forever.
But if we decided that we want a different life and dedicate ourselves to getting it, we will be making better choices that bring us closer to our goals.
Making no decision is still a choice, but I can assure you that life will be boring if you aren’t making any choices to improve your situation.
5) Your Time is Limited Here, So You Keep Busy
My country’s average life expectance is 82 years, I’m not halfway there yet, but I’m getting close. Whether you are closer to the halfway mark or not doesn’t matter too much. What matters is that your time is limited, and you only have so much time to do all the things you want to do.
Keeping busy might seem like a waste of time, and sometimes it is, especially if we are doing things like playing video games, watching TV or looking at our phones.
But keeping busy can also be about doing productive things like working towards our goals or developing lasting relationships with the people we care about.
Your time is limited, so don’t live a boring life, keep yourself busy so that you aren’t wasting your precious time.
6) You are Obliged To Do Your Best, No Matter What
Everyone has a different sense of what is the right thing to do for them. For some people, doing their best is quitting school and getting a job; for others, it is getting a Ph.D. before landing a job. Either way, only you know what is best for yourself, so you must work towards achieving it.
Life might seem boring because we aren’t challenging ourselves or working towards goals that we deem worthy.
In the past, I focused my attention on getting a better job, but that never made me happy; it just gave me something to put my attention on. Realizing that my self-worth came from working towards goals that I valued made my day job less stressful. This happened because I recognized that work was something I had to do to make it possible to have time for the things I wanted to do.
7) Blaming Other People Weakens Us
It is easy to blame other people for the situation we are in, and while sometimes they do deserve some of the blame, only we can change the way we respond to a situation. Some people can be complete jerks, but they only have power over us if we let them. We might not be able to stop other people from doing what they are doing, but we can change our perspective on how much what they are doing matters to us.
When we blame other people, we give them power over us, allowing them to have more control, and giving away some of our autonomy.
The only way to turn things around is to take personal responsibility for our situation, which gives us the power to control our fate.
Life isn’t supposed to be boring, but if we rely on other people for guidance and validation, we will never have the power to decide for ourselves what we want to do.
8) The Fear of Failure is Worse Than Never Trying
So often, we are afraid to go after what we want because we fear that we might fail. And while failure is always an option, it is never a certainty; however, your expectation to fail will always get in your way. You never know what the future will bring or what you are capable of doing until you try.
Don’t get me wrong; I’m not suggesting you climb Mt. Everest without training; you need to pick your battles wisely.
What I am saying is that if you prepare and train, then select the right battles, you will have a much better chance of succeeding.
I’ve always wanted to write, but it was also easy to accept that most writers don’t make any money, so that was an excuse to keep me from trying. Our lives are guaranteed to be boring if we don’t chase after the things we want due to the fear of failure.
9) Stop Wasting Time, It is a Killer
I remember the years when I played video games every day, or more recently when I listened to YouTube with all my free time. There is nothing worse than wasted time, and I know because I always used to waste my time. Now I do way less wasting and use my free time to work toward my goals.
While we are wasting time, we feel demotivated from doing anything else; we might even believe that we can’t do anything else.
But that is not the case; sitting still or wasting time is a killer because it makes us feel like shit. While I used to have lots of fun while playing video games, I’d look back at the end of the week and have not accomplished anything of substance, and that would make me feel bad.
Life may seem boring because you are giving up long-term progress for short-term enjoyment. Stop wasting your time and start working towards what gives your life meaning and purpose.
10) You Need Time To Think About Why You Are Bord
Even if we are swamped, that doesn’t mean we aren’t bored; in the past, when I spent hours a day going to and from the office, I never had much time to think about anything. But once the pandemic hit and we were forced to work from home, I had a lot more time to think about what I was doing and why life felt so dissatisfying.
Life isn’t supposed to be boring, but sometimes boredom serves the purpose of showing us that our life needs a little bit of change.
Rather than denying boredom, look at it as an opportunity to evaluate your life and make it better.
11) Other People Exist, Don’t Do Everything Alone
A lot of what has been said has relied on our independence; it has been about what we deem worthy of our time. But the other side of the situation is that there are seven odd billion people out there, and some 100 of particular importance to each of us.
We are all a part of the world of people around us, so we need to keep them in mind and involve them when possible.
Last night while I was making this list, this item came to me because I had just been working on a website for my friends. They are working on a business and needed some technical help; I had the skills and was able to help solve their problems.
Without my friends, I wouldn’t have known that they needed help and wouldn’t have been able to offer it. At the same time, all three of us get satisfaction, I get to accomplish gratifying tasks that help them, and they get a kickstart towards building their business. It is a win-win for all of us.
Life isn’t supposed to be boring, but you might need to add more people to your surroundings if it is.
Not only are people fun to be around, but they can inspire us to do better with our lives.
12) Is Life Supposed To Be Boring? NO
So far, this has been an exhausting list that covers different questions or ways of thinking about our state of boredom or how to improve it. But what matters most is what we think of our situation.
If you believe, for whatever reason, that life is supposed to be boring, then it will seem that way. On the other hand, if you think it should be exciting and worthy of praise, it will be that way instead.
You have to choose to live a life that isn’t boring, cause it isn’t going to happen on its own. At the same time, you need to realize that it is a choice, or at least that there is something you can do about it.
We can’t change where or when we were born, but we can choose to do things we’ve never done before if we want to.
Life is only boring if you let it be that way, so work towards living a more exciting life, and that is what you will get. On top of this, living a meaningful life makes even the mundane seem more enjoyable.
So work on meaning and purpose, and then the rest will follow.
If you liked this, you might also like my book on living a meaningful life. How to Be Amazing A Manifesto
covers 42 ways to add more meaning to your life or find meaning in what you are already doing. The book uses science, stories and personal experience to sway you towards a more positive outlook on life. If you are curious, click the link above.