It’s amazing that in our world where we literally have millions of pieces of entertainment at our fingertips (movies, songs, videos, etc) that we can become bored, but happens to all of us.
According to Nir Eyal in his book “Indistractable“, the solution is simple:
“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.”
If you can follow the example a 4-year-old and just keep asking “why?”, boredom will vanish. This idea has lead to many posts of mine over the years. For example, years ago I couldn’t understand why DPI settings on an image would make a difference, so I asked why, dug in, and shared the results.
I’ve searched recently for “Why does Major League Baseball wants bigger bases?” (player safety and offensive output), “Why are gas prices are so high?” (somewhat difficult to separate facts from politics), and “Why should I self-host Google Fonts?” (due to some privacy issues). The importance level varies, but I find it fun to go down those trails.
While most of those “why” questions are things you can research and find on your own, you can even do some of this with others to dig to the heart of their questions. If you’re trying to unpack the answer to a behavior, asking the five whys can be a fantastic way to get to the heart of the matter.
Leave a Reply