Bored most of the time

Why not read and write more complex books?

 

There’s nothing wrong. Life is mostly boring.

“Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”

Pleasure does not lead to happiness. Only by the reduction of the overwhelming pain and boredom will lead to a somewhat satisfying life.

 

I see. You read novels, right? What about nonfiction? That's different. Grab a college textbook from an area that interests you

 

Learn how to play a musical instrument. I used to play drums and I found it fun.

 

No advice or remedy that I have found for it other than accepting that it is a part of life, which has helped. At some point if you have tried everything and it's still there, then being resigned to it is how you fight through it. Trying to escape it or "fix" it just makes it worse and only increases the amount of time you spend dwelling on it.

I take some solace in the fact that I don't know the future, so I don't know if it will always be this way. I have found one of the biggest contributor to adding to an already stressful situation is me doing the opposite where I act as if I do know the future and therefore imagine it as always being this way.

 

There is the choice of games/hosted games you might be unaware off, the average quality is all over the pace but they still have some of the best writing i'v seen out there and it is as engaging as gaming.

 

interactive fiction games, the main allure is that you get to make your character in the book like a dnd but for solo player.

 

Not sure what the level of human interaction you have is. But I find friendship, communication, etc. Very helpful in this. Online works to a degree but nothing quite like in person interaction.

I used to game when I was younger, and I enjoyed it a lot. But I do totally get what you mean by that bored feeling from gaming/watching TV. It's entertaining, but there's a lot of needs I think we have as that this can't fulfill.

Now that I have kids and most of my best friends do too. I realize how busy we are and secluded into our own families we can become. Date nights, guys/girls nights out become harder to do. But I think they are very important. I rarely feel bored when surrounded by my best friends.

Your post reminded me how often I neglect this in my own life.

 

I think it is harder to make friends after high school/college. But it's not impossible. Since I moved back home, I have become quite close with one of my Dad's best friends, we have great conversations, I really enjoy stopping in and having a drink and just hanging out. He also has cookouts often. When I'm doing things like this I never feel bored and I do totally know what you mean. Might be something to pursue. Wishing you the best.

 

I get what you’re saying but look at the mental trick you’re doing here. In the above you make an assumption, then you use that assumption to increase and maximize your suffering. You don’t know if other people are less bored or more bored than you. What people project in their day to day interactions isn’t always what’s going on inside them. They could be just as bored as you but putting on a happy face for others. For all you know, the majority of us are bored out of our minds most of the time.

What’s that old saying? Comparison is the thief of joy! I’m sure it’s a murder of joy when the comparison is your own made up fantasy about how good others have it vs yourself.

 

I'm not sure, but I think that's directly related to the addiction and it really becomes noticeable when we are in the recovery stage.

Like, we get used to this hit of dopamine from edging/PMO and it's a pretty good amount of it. Healthy people get a hit when they do things they enjoy, but us addicts find that the same hit just doesn't do it for us. It's not enough to move our needles.

I'm kind of going through something similar today. There are things I want to get enjoyment from (and I know I have in the past), but those same things just don't make me happy.

So these are fake numbers, but let's say that our normal level of dopamine is 0. A healthy guy works out or puts in an hour cooking something creative or just playing with his kids. His dope level goes up to 20 and that makes him feel really good. It later resets back to 0.

For an addict, we are pumping that number up to 50 when we are edging for hours. That's the level our bodies get used to and that's what makes us feel good. Anything below that level is just blech. Getting in a couple of hours on a hike maybe gets us to that same level of 20 as the healthy guy, but that just doesn't do it enough for us anymore.

Staying in recovery means that you reset that level back down to where it should be. That when you do things that other people enjoy doing, you get the same small kick that other people get. But you need to stay clean enough to let your body reset itself in that area. How long that takes varies for each of us.

Not suggesting that you do anything specific other than just sit clean, wait it out, know that you will get better and know that you're not in it along today