The Case for Boredom
Does anyone get bored any more? Given the prevalence of streaming TV, social media, instant messaging and news aggregation sites, boredom seems on the way out. But what could we lose if we’re never bored?
Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life published the following articles in 2013.
Does anyone get bored any more? Given the prevalence of streaming TV, social media, instant messaging and news aggregation sites, boredom seems on the way out. But what could we lose if we’re never bored?
Ill feelings between family members are the surest way to put a damper on holiday cheer. Sadly, it’s often pride that keeps one or both of the parties involved from taking that all important first step toward reconciliation.
For many years evidence has been mounting that the construct we call “personality” is not as well-defined as we might think and that personality patterns are nowhere near as stable or as intractable as we once believed them to be.
It’s no surprise that being foolish about money makes you poor, but new research suggests that being poor can make you foolish. Could this negative feedback loop constitute a mental disorder?
It’s one thing to have high expectations of our children, but quite another to apply standards at odds with their development, temperament, and cognitive capacity.
Most of us sail through our daily routines with little thought as to how badly we’re exceeding our essential calorie demands, kidding ourselves about what kinds of things and how much of them we’ve eaten. But when there’s a record to contend with, it’s much harder to remain unaware or in denial.
Instinctively, most of us fear and avoid judgment. Without regular, searching, accurate reflection on what we’re doing and what results our actions achieve, we set ourselves up for a numb kind of stagnation that can last for years or decades.
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