The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
-
Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
-
Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.
-
Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.
-
Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I actually agree that the theoretical value of boredom is the primary argument against the massive availability of sedentary leisure activities. Still, I’m unsure of how much boredom drives motivation. Prisoners are (they often report) extremely bored, and yet they only rarely decide to be highly productive (although some do). They’re a heavily selected population, but I’m still skeptical. I think back to the endless boredoms of my childhood, my brother occupying our shared Game Boy Advance, my books finished, nothing on TV, sitting in a hotel room on vacation bored out of my mind. What did I do? Fucking nothing lmao.
I absolutely hate being bored (could anyone tell that I have ADHD?) and there's no way in hell I'd take a time machine back more than 10 years in the past.
I like having a phone, as a kid I killed boredom by exhausting every library I could, watching TV or playing games.
My phone makes both dead tree books and the TV obsolete, and I actually have a good pc I paid for myself instead of the old junker I had in the past.
Call me a big fan of modernity, but boredom just tells me that I'm burning the limited negentropy of the universe and not even having fun in the process.
More options
Context Copy link
I don't know what options prisoners have but it seems what they have in common with kids is a genuine lack of options and both may lack enough of an introduction to books to make them seem interesting (which I see wasn't true in your case). As an adult I can't really count all the other things I could be doing with my time, exploring the woods nearby will take a bit of effort but will probably be something I look back on as more rewarding than the same time spent gaming.
Hotels can be very boring places for kids to be fair, you're pretty dependent on your parents' schedule to leave and do something.
I had similar experiences arguing with my brother about who got to play the Xbox this time. Even having a strong stimulus like a Game Boy nearby can be disruptive as instead of finding something new to do you can just wait or argue for your turn, your sibling isn't going to put his mind to the same problem because he's occupied. Things were much more relaxed when we visited my grandparents' house and there was genuinely nothing to do but go out in the garden and look at bugs.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link