Reflections On Boredom in Mongolia
Date- April 17, 2019
Written by George Balarezo, Intrepid Global Citizen
A long queue awaited us at the border and we were ready to jump right into the mess. Lines of cars were waiting for hours as bored passengers were having picnics on the side of the road. Locals were standing around shooting the breeze with one another, anything but stressed out.
Many inhabitants of the economically developed world thinks their time is so valuable, however all you need to do is be present and focused on something and one can be entertained for hours. People in Mongolia know how to make the best of situations that those in my home country would consider a “big waste of time.”
Boredom is the greatest educator in the world. It has always forced me to create my own entertainment. Striking up conversations with those around me while having nothing to do or nowhere to go has lead me to life changing conversations. I am so glad I did not grow up with a computer in my hand to distract me from the things that are important in my life. Computers and electronic devices distract me from my boredom. Looking closer at my surroundings has often lead me to life realizations. I can’t learn anything new consuming the same media, watching the same TV station or same Youtube channel. Boredom breeds creativity and new ideas. Simply by sitting and doing nothing, I have had some of the most creative ideas in my life. My mind relaxes when I am bored. When I was doing nothing, I decided to create a new class to teach at my university and ideas kept popping into my head. When I was sitting in silence, book ideas kept creeping into my imagination and now several are becoming reality. When I was bored and doing nothing, my ideas for this post came to light in a simple manner. Ideas pop into my head and become words and actions and boredom is my empty canvas.
Science suggests that creative ideas result when alpha waves while relaxes with their eyes closed, when we are daydreaming or doing aerobic exercise. New ideas do not magically pop into our heads when our boredom stresses us out. Allow boredom to become part of your daily routine to unleash the artist within you. Learn from the Mongolians the art of enjoying your boredom. Wouldn’t life be so much sweeter if all of humanity learned the skill of patience and waiting?
I agree with you in part about boredom. And I also think I need time to focus on myself completely without being tied to doing anything. However, I sometimes get reflection from medias ; SNS,news etc. So, I think we all have different ways of getting inspiration.
After reading this article, I could have a new sight about boredom. Until now, I couldn;t accept myself feeling boring, so I always met friends or watched youtube to keep myself from being alone and feeling boring. However, after reading this article, I thought maybe I need some time to be alone and feel boring. As I get older, I can easily recognize that my creativity is getting weaker. I’d like to try doing nothing for few minutes before I get to sleep from now on.
It’s amazing! I want to go mongolia someday too. I think it is amazing country.
The article was about reflections on boredom. Feeling boredom, doing nothing, just having a rest can refresh people’s mind. It gives creativity and some realizations about several situations. I thought that i also need to feel this boredom and try to get away from daily distracts. Thank you for writing.
Boredom could be one way to find out creative ideas, but I think we can learn many things from medias such as books, or even youtube videos. We could see and experience lots of things from medias and make it into my own by thinking deeply about it.
Your article makes me to think one more time about my life. I’m very busy person because I make appointment everyday i don’t like alone time. Actually I like meeting many people and going to noisy place. But I don’t pursue those kind of things anymore, now I’ll have some only my own time. Thanks to george.
I agree with your point of the whole article. It’s quite sad how people nowadays do not even try to take a little time for daydreaming, it’s like they would normally go grab their phones right away whenever they are bored instead. Also, I found it interesting that you think boredom breeds creativity and new ideas.
I was in mongolia for 12days in this summer, so i really agree what you said. There are many things to do with any electric things. So i do 땅따먹기 with my univercity friends! Like this, without electric things, we can do many things that we don’t usually do. And also can spend time about what we are do not usually think. In this aspect, i agree with that boredom is a good thing.
I agree with the opinion that lots of same media contents did not give us anything to learn.
You say boredom evokes creativity but in my opinion, the creativity can occur anywhere. In common, Korean already say ‘hurry’ before things starts.
This ‘hurry’ culture is deeply embedded in Korea and so, in this culture, it is difficult to live in boredom. And this situation, it’s hard to find creativity in only boredom.
Maybe, that media is the effort of people to have their own boredom or even creativity in this situation.
What an impressive article. I agree with your idea that boredom makes people creative and helpes them go forward. I think if I haven’t gotten a phone I would have done better like my high school student. I imagined many things and read more books that days because I didn’t use electric devices. I want to remove my phone to find my own life. Not a slave of youtube and games. Maybe I was affected by your story. I’ll live in the present. Thank you Chunsam.
Actually I never thought that ‘boredom’makes us more creative I just think boredom is negative mind makes me lethargy, but after reading the article I learn that boerdom can make us more creative and make us relax. thank you chunsam
I agree that boredom makes me creative and do something new task.
Boredom is essence of our life.