Boredom and Loneliness. Do You Know All There Is To It?

Are You Bored Or Are You Lonely? 😯

Now that the world is becoming more and more advanced in Technology, and now that everyone buries their faces in iPhones and iPads and iPods and all the other I's, people who don't do the same for one reason or another  face problems with boredom and loneliness.

 I once watched a video with my family about a little girl who paid her dad $20 to talk to her, because her dad was always on the phone either talking or chatting on social media. And I think it was obvious that the little girl had become lonely.

   Thousands of other people face this problem because someone they love or someone they want to talk to is chained to his/her phone. This a lot of times leads to boredom and almost always leads to loneliness. But that is just one of the causes of boredom/loneliness.
 
    So today, I am going to talk about the meaning of boredom and loneliness and how to deal with it as young adults.


   Boredom And How To Deal With It
      
       According to Google, "Boredom is an emotional or psychological state experienced when an individual is left without anything in part to do, is not interested in his or her surroundings, or feels that a day or period is tedious". According to English Language, "Boredom is the state of being bored".

   Boredom has good sides and bad sides. The good side of boredom is that it pushes us to change and explore and discover great things. Without boredom, humans would not have the taste for adventure and exploration that makes us unique.

 "The very fact that boredom is a daily experience suggests that it should be doing something useful" says Heather Lench at Texas A&M University.

 But the bad side to boredom shows that it encourages curiosity that can harm us . It is said that;

• Boredom in one study is the single biggest prediction of alcohol, cigarette and cannabis use among a group of South African teenagers.

• Encourages comfort eating. So if one day you wonder "how the heck did I get so fat?!", you were bored honey 😉

• The overall effect of boredom on your life expectancy could be drastic too.

    Google says that very common ways to escape boredom is to sleep or daydream, but I think both promotes laziness. As stated in Proverbs 6:10-11, " a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of your hands to rest, and poverty will come upon you like a vagabond and want like an armed man".

 I think there are more productive ways to combat boredom like going on the Internet and practicing DIYs activities and making objects, learning a new language and learning how to play musical instruments. The list is endless if you only open your eyes or your heart.


  Loneliness And How To Deal With It

   
      Loneliness is a complex and a usually unpleasant emotional response to isolation.

"Its important to point out before I go any further that loneliness is not the same thing as being a private person, or a 'loner', because some people actually both need and enjoy a lot of tike to ourselves. Loneliness instead, refers to the difference between the amount of social contact or intimacy you have and the amount you want. It's about feeling isolated, like an outcast. " by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Author of No One Understand You And What To Do About It.  

For example, I am a private person and I enjoy a lot of time alone but I can still feel lonely. That being said, the opposite of loneliness isn't popularity, you can still have dozens of friends and still feel lonely.

Causes of Loneliness

•  Lack of friendship

•  Loss of any important long term relationship

•  Grief

•  Moving to an unfamiliar community leading to homesickness

•  Dysfunction of communication

  Those are just few causes of loneliness but they are some of the commonest.

 Two Ways to Handle loneliness 

If you're lonely here are two good ways to help you because loneliness is not a good thing;

• Change mal-adaptive or dysfunctional thinking. Lonely people are negative thinkers, they're hardly optimistic because they often fall into depression. Begin to think positively. Find reasons to smile, laugh at jokes, dance to music, eat good food. 

•  Improving social skills. Go out. Hang out with your friends. Go to a party, find cool party topics and engage in conversations. Most importantly, believe in yourself. 😉

   Have a great day. As a teenager I experience these two subjects a lot and I thought it would be a good idea if people understood the width or consequences of boredom and loneliness. 

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