Ennui

Mabuang ako sa kaaya! These are the words you hear from others within this situation. Most of them come from the young ones. Since almost all the municipalities in the Philippines are in a community quarantine (with the enhanced community quarantine in Luzon), people are limited with their movements and physical distancing is also encouraged to limit the spread of the dreaded virus.

Boredom is a common feeling. Feeling unsatisfied by an activity or uninterested in it, can lead to boredom. Boredom may occur when you feel energetic but have nowhere to direct your energy. It may also occur when you have difficulty focusing on a task. Boredom is marked by an empty feeling, as well as a sense of frustration with that emptiness. When you’re bored, you may have a limited attention span and lack of interest in what’s happening around you. You may feel apathetic, fatigued, nervous, or jittery (Giorgi, 2016).

Since the pandemic is escalating and we are being ordered to stay at home, our routines suddenly changed. We also found limited work to do since we got so familiar with our previous tasks we now see the present situation as boring. We have less things on our hands.

According to Jessica Lebber (2013), boredom can be a destructive feeling, leading people to zone out in meetings and classes–and in some cases, even to alcohol or drugs. But in certain circumstances, boredom can also be a force for good, becoming the spark that starts a creative process or leading to greater self-reflection.

This is the time when the individual must confront his or her inner person by dealing with the new situation and discover new possibilities by reflections and creative diversions.

In late March 1845 Henry David Thoreau went to Walden Pond, a sixty-two acre body of water a few miles from his parents' home in Concord, Massachusetts, and selected a spot to build a house. He eventually wrote his solitary thoughts and experiences which would later become one of his masterpieces:

When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months.

Over the course of the next three hundred-odd pages, Thoreau outlined his philosophy of life, politics, and nature, laying the foundation for a secure place in the canon of great American writers. Although Walden enjoyed only moderate success in Thoreau's lifetime, his experiment at the pond would spark considerable interest in the years to come especially in dealing with oneself and introspection.

Little things make us happy, and little things can drag us down. One “little thing” that can be a source of unhappiness is boredom. I’ve found that the more I focus on my boredom or irritation, the more I amplify that feeling (Rubin, 2010).

Feelings of boredom and being busy are subjective. You can’t look out in the world and claim it is busy or boring. To say these feelings are subjective is obvious, but that misses a key point. The real problem is quality. Being engaged, neither busy or bored, happens when your attention is focused on high-quality activities.

This is the time when one could discover the stories of their family members: their experiences, their dreams and their fears. A person can also develop a hobby which can allow the time to pass in a creative or physical manner. There are books to read and music to listen. Also, there are areas in the house to clean and there are areas to enhance.

M.Farouk Radwan, MSc says: It’s your life style that should be changed and not anything else. Do you know why do you feel bored often? It is because you rarely find something interesting. And do you know why you lack interest? Because you have no major goals to go after! The more goals you have the more tools you will need to accomplish them and the more you will find these tools around you and so you will hardly feel bored. Boredom comes from within and not from your surroundings and that's why the only effective way to deal with boredom is to change yourself.

We do not know where this pandemic will lead us. We still have two or more weeks to observe and wait whether the virus will be contained or not. We might be the cause of the spread if we are going to go out and gratify ourselves. There might come a time when will be FORCED to stay at home if it entails public safety.

Therefore, we might as well know how NOT to get bored.