How Hustle Culture Has Impacted our Ability to be Bored — and how this is impacting our creativity

Our inability to be bored is degrading our creative capacity.

And no — I don’t mean the kind of bored where you just twiddle your thumbs and immediately revert to watching something on Netflix or other streaming service for the next few hours just to fill in the free time void you have after work and/or on the weekends.

I’m talking about the last time you just sat down and gave your brain a little breather. Because remember, our brains literally work 24/7 as is, and the reality is that there is just so much quality mental, emotional, and physical exertion we can expend in a given day whether we’d like to admit that or not.

— How much capacity we have does of course vary person-by-person, but is also based on a series of factors we all can work on as well, e.g., how much we’ve cultivated our ability to focus and hone in on a given task at hand (understanding the detrimental nature of multi-tasking), our innate sense of self, and ability to not be so mired down by the external validation — both positive and negative — received from outside forces (e.g., family, friends, colleagues, etc.) .

You may be surprised, but a lot of being bored has the ability to help us work on a lot of these factors.

Now, I also know that telling you to just “sit and do nothing” sounds comical just thinking about the endless amount of work you have yet to catch up on amidst the commitments you have with the people around you, but finding those pockets of free time throughout your day to do so may just save you from the onset of a possible mental breakdown.

This is because these moments of boredom can be the little recharge you didn’t realize you needed to hatch your next best idea, produce your best work, or even the ability to truly be present for the close people around you.

To reiterate, having moments of allowing our brains to recharge improves our emotional and mental self-awareness. This is because we are finally allotting time for self-introspection, which subconsciously also awakens our creativity muscle, and refills our dangerously low mental and emotional reservoirs — in essence, helping us show up as our best selves for the people around us, including ourselves.

Personally, the moment I truly realized that I was living my life on autopilot — throughout nearly all of undergrad, especially — was how even after achieving all of the academic goals I had set for myself, I still didn’t feel as fulfilled and content as I thought I would.

And that’s because without giving ourselves time to just sit and appreciate the present moment in front of us, we inevitably get so burrowed and hyperfocused on the next “best thing” and end up in this vicious, obligatory cycle of constantly chasing one feat after the other solely because the minute we are not doing anything “productive for society” we feel behind and deem our selves ‘less useful.’

Well let me tell you, it’s okay to take a break and chill out for once.

We have decades of life to live (so long as you are working on incorporating sustainable actions and habits into your daily lifestyle) still, so tell yourself to let up on the gas a little bit and just cruise for once. Take a look at everything you have done for yourself and accomplished thus far, and then tune into what your mental, physical, and emotional needs are.

Most importantly, STOP comparing your journey to that of the people around you, because this is nowhere near conducive towards building upon the life that is yours and that is entirely unique and different from that of the person right next to you. I could only assume that because you are taking the time to read this for your own self-betterment, I have no doubt that you are just on track.

I say this because we all live in a time where it’s so easy to check in and see what other people are up to, achieving, and experiencing in life, so inevitably it is just as easy to feel suaded into feeling like we’re behind and not making the most out of our own lives and realizing our full potential.

So let’s do ourselves a favor and use our own lives as a benchmark for improvement by comparing where we are in this present moment to our younger selves, instead of tantalizing, ruminating, and then digging ourselves deep into a mental and emotional rut over how unhappy we are that we’re anywhere else other than where we are right now.

And looking back at the past xx-years of my life of what I can consciously recall, I try to remember when did being bored ever become such a bad thing?

Two words. One phrase.

Hustle culture.

According to Adele Jackson-Gibson, she calls hustle culture a “lifestyle where career has become such a priority in your life or the environment that you work in that other aspects of being human — such as hobbies, family-time, and self-care — often take a backseat.”

Growing up in this predominating mindset where society glorifies living to work as opposed to working to live has taken a toll on our perception of what we prioritize and value in our lives. It doesn’t help that every person we’ve probably looked up to also depicted this dominating live to work lifestyle and mentality.

And I think about the moments I catch myself in these unruly head spaces that all feel like a mental juggling act — from trying to balance time studying for boards, preparing for the next day of clinic, or working on my thesis on top of all the other self-care tasks and relationships I also have to upkeep — I immediately realize how important it is to reel me back into the present moment, taking the time to look around at my current circumstances and appreciate it no matter how closer or far I am to the ideal version of my life I imagine to get to at one point or another.

So even if it’s just a couple minutes in between transitioning obligations from home to work, driving from point A to B, or even while you’re making your coffee- take it and give your brain a little breather. Some of the most famous writers and trailblazers of our time have said that their most creative ideas have come out of seemingly mundane tasks such as brushing their teeth, taking a shower, or driving to the grocery store.

Remember that being bored allows us to freely explore and honor the thoughts that we have, and through that allows us to help foster our creativity and show up as our best selves without straining the finite reserves of mental capacity we have in a day.