An unexpected discovery: the culprit behind my boredom

It took me a lifetime to figure it out.

In most of my jobs, I spend most of my time scrolling and wondering what people do all day. Everybody is always ‘busy, busy, busy’, while I could often finish my workday in less than 4 hours. I know this sounds like heaven too many, but it’s not.

Initially, I thought I didn’t have enough work and that it would be temporary. But my colleagues were busy nonstop. I would ask for more work and pick up other tasks, but still, I couldn’t fill an 8-hour workday. (I still can’t, by the way.)

I started taking longer breaks and talking to colleagues and clients. In my cubicle, I turned the computer away, hiding my screen, to do non-work-related tasks. I would organize my photos, scroll hours on Facebook, and read every news article I could find.

I wondered, ‘What’s wrong with me?’

Am I missing some vital work here? I felt worthless and insecure. It even led to depression, and I had to stay home for months. After quitting this job, the negative cycle repeated itself.

I started every new job full of energy but fell into boredom and doom-scrolling hell. I would quit again and move on to the next one. I tried a lot to beat the boredom. Time blocking, setting goals, small goals, big goals, the Pomodoro technique, etc. I read productivity books and paid for tools to beat my procrastination. I went to therapy, career counseling, and business coaching.

A lot helped, but nothing solved the boredom problem.

The problem was that I was looking for external factors and solutions to solve this boredom issue. Changing jobs, blaming the manager, procrastinating, scrolling,… Thinking, ‘Oh, this productivity method will be the solution,’ ‘These vitamins tell me I’ll get all the nutrition I need for focus,’ ‘This next Instagram reel will give me the answer,’ ‘This course might finally do the trick’… It’s almost natural to take on the victim role and blame others for our own misery. That’s the easiest solution because you don’t have to do the hard work yourself. The thing was, it was not something external; it was always internal.

But after discovering the real reason behind my boredom, I realized I had yet to embark on the most challenging internal journey to deal with it.