Boredom can be a window to a sunnier day

Do you ever get bored? That might not be a bad thing.

Boredom can have its upsides, writes Neel Burton for the online journal Aeon.

Burton, a psychiatrist and philosopher at the University of Oxford, says “Boredom can be our way of telling ourselves that we are not spending our time as well as we could, that we should be doing something more enjoyable, more useful, or more fulfilling.”

Boredom – when it’s used as a proper tool — can be  “an agent of change and progress, a driver of ambition, shepherding us out into larger, greener pastures,” according to Burton.

Therefore, he continues, it could be worth our while to cultivate some degree of boredom, “insofar as it provides us with the preconditions to delve more deeply into ourselves, reconnect with the rhythms of nature, and begin and complete highly focused, long and difficult work.”

Read the full essay here: Boredom is but a window to a sunny day beyond the gloom