It’s Okay to be Bored, But What You’re Feeling Isn’t Boredom

Meet despair, depression’s restless cousin, and learn how to overcome it

For those of us who concern ourselves with personal productivity, boredom can feel like an admission of failure.

There’s always something we ought to be doing, and if we aren’t doing that thing, we feel guilty. That’s the trouble with the Sisyphean drive to optimize and micromanage every aspect of our lives. It pretends that time, like a cup, is only useful when filled.

But sometimes—especially during these times—it’s not.

This Isn’t Boredom

Work is curtailed or vanishing, social obligations have thinned, and what we’re left with is an unfamiliar and often uncomfortable remainder.

It doesn’t feel like an abundance of free time; it’s time, sure, but polluted by worry and doubt. It feels like an inability to operate at our normal capacity. We’re confined. Are we making ends meet? Are we doing enough to help? We feel diminished, somehow, and struggle to place that feeling. Reaching for an optimistic explanation, we find the closest analogue to be “boredom”, so we assign the label.

But what you’re feeling isn’t boredom, it’s despair.