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Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, it's Cully Talley here. Welcome to you. This

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Speaker 1: week's My Joe Monday. So we're going to talk about

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Speaker 1: boredom today. When I was a kid growing up in

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Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, boredom it was pretty much a

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Speaker 1: regular state. And people that come from I grew up

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Speaker 1: in that era will relate to this. Because there was

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Speaker 1: no phone in my pocket, there was no streaming TV,

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Speaker 1: no constant feed of notifications. If there was nothing to do,

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Speaker 1: there was literally nothing to do. Well that's what it

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Speaker 1: felt like anyway, And I remember complaining to my mother

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Speaker 1: that I was bored and flicking through the same books

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Speaker 1: I'd already read, or riding my bike to just nowhere

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Speaker 1: in particular, or playing handball against the wall of the

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Speaker 1: house for hours. You had no choice but to be bored,

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Speaker 1: whether you liked it or not. It was just part

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Speaker 1: of life. But what I wouldn't have known back then

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Speaker 1: is that this inevitable boredom was quietly shaping my mind.

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Speaker 1: So I invented games and used my imagination and asked

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Speaker 1: questions and probably spent and hassled my mother a lot,

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Speaker 1: spent more time with her, and sometimes I was just

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Speaker 1: with my own thoughts. And I even remember sitting on

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Speaker 1: the school bus and staring out the window, getting kind

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Speaker 1: of lost in day dreams. And I remember actually quite

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Speaker 1: enjoying that. And I didn't have a word for it then,

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Speaker 1: but I did find it quite peaceful. But if fast

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Speaker 1: forward to today, I'm sounding like an old person going

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Speaker 1: back in my day. Man, if you do fast forward

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Speaker 1: to today, boredom barely gets a foot in the door.

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Speaker 1: So there are endless on demand entertainment. And I'm not

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Speaker 1: singling out kids here or teenagers here at all, because

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Speaker 1: all of us can be entertained twenty four to seven

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Speaker 1: if we allow ourselves to be swept up in it.

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Speaker 1: And most of us are me included. So many of

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Speaker 1: you who are from my generation can remember having no

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Speaker 1: choice but to experience boredom. But now even five minutes

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Speaker 1: without stimulation creates this almost automatic urge to fill the time,

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Speaker 1: so every pause gets patched over with a scroll or

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Speaker 1: a podcast or a YouTube clip or music in our ears. Look, technology,

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Speaker 1: without a doubt has given us some amazing tools, but

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Speaker 1: it's also training us to feel uncomfortable and agitated with stillness.

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Speaker 1: So next time you're in a doctor's waiting room, or

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Speaker 1: standing in line for a coffee or waiting at a

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Speaker 1: bus stop. Just notice what happens. Notice your thoughts, notice

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Speaker 1: that the feelings in your body. Because for me, the

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Speaker 1: urge to check my phone it just appears automatically. It's

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Speaker 1: that the sudden space of time almost seems abnormal and

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Speaker 1: must be felled. And recently I came across a book

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Speaker 1: and there was a chapter in the book called the

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Speaker 1: Nature and Value of Boredom, And it turns out boredom

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Speaker 1: isn't the enemy. It's actually a signal. It's a nudge

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Speaker 1: from our mind saying this moment lacks meaning for you

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Speaker 1: find something that matters. So think about that. The agitated

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Speaker 1: feeling you get could be a chance to find meaning

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Speaker 1: in this moment. So boredom's role is motivational. So it

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Speaker 1: pushes us to re engage with life, not just with

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Speaker 1: any activity, but with something purposeful. And that doesn't have

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Speaker 1: to be anything big. It could be anything from noticing

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Speaker 1: your surroundings with curiosity, or having a quick conversation with

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Speaker 1: a stranger, or just being with your thoughts. Because if

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Speaker 1: we're all plugging that gap with quick entertainment, we actually

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Speaker 1: miss that process. I'm sure, we get relief, but we

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Speaker 1: miss the chance to find something truly meaningful. And let's

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Speaker 1: be honest, there are some meaningful content on social media,

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Speaker 1: without a doubt, but a lot of it is just noise.

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Speaker 1: And Steve Job puts it really well. Boredom allows one

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Speaker 1: to indulge in curiosity, and out of curiosity comes everything.

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Speaker 1: Science tells us that when the mind is overloaded with input,

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Speaker 1: it wanders, It daydreams, it connects dots that usually stay apart,

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Speaker 1: and that's where creativity and problem solving and joy and

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Speaker 1: fresh perspective live. So this very episode was born out

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Speaker 1: of boredom. So I was in a tech free, music

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Speaker 1: free sauna deliberately intentionally for twenty five minutes. There was

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Speaker 1: nothing just but me and the heat, and my mind

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Speaker 1: wandered and the idea for this episode kind of popped up,

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Speaker 1: along with a few others. And I wouldn't have had

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Speaker 1: that had I been distracted. And the stoics actually back

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Speaker 1: this up. They believed peace and clarity comes from focusing

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Speaker 1: your attention on what you can control, and boredom is

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Speaker 1: a great place to practice that. So you can't control

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Speaker 1: the discomfort, but you can choose where you place your

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Speaker 1: focus next. And that's why I've been experimenting with something

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Speaker 1: that I call intentional boredom. And I thought that I

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Speaker 1: was being really clever and I actually thought up that

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Speaker 1: term intentional boredom in the sauna. But of course it

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Speaker 1: turns out, like many creative ideas, that it's already been taken,

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Speaker 1: so it's actually a thing, intentional boredom. So I was like, damn,

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Speaker 1: but look here, here's what it means. Creating moments in

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Speaker 1: the day when you're not trying to fill the space,

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Speaker 1: so no phone, no TV, to do lists, just sitting, walking, exercising,

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Speaker 1: folding laundry or sweating it out in the sauna without

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Speaker 1: extra noise. And at first it can feel uncomfortable and

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Speaker 1: you'll fidget and your brain will search for stimulation because

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Speaker 1: that's what it's used to. But if you ride that

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Speaker 1: urge wave, something can shift. Ideas start bubbling up, problems

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Speaker 1: start to be solved. Maybe you think of a holiday

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Speaker 1: to plan, or a work project or a friend that

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Speaker 1: you want to connect with, or maybe you think of

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Speaker 1: the small things that you're grateful for, so it's almost

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Speaker 1: like your mind can feel clearer. So here's my challenge

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Speaker 1: for you this week, pick one pocket of time, whether

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Speaker 1: it's ten or fifteen minutes, and put all your inputs away.

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Speaker 1: Let boredom in like ride that urge to fill it

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Speaker 1: and notice what comes up. Even if it's just like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is boring, just notice that with curiosity and then

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Speaker 1: notice what happens next, because we don't have to be

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Speaker 1: entertained every second, and sometimes the most important thoughts, the

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Speaker 1: best ideas, and the clearest sense of direction arrive in

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Speaker 1: these quiet spaces that we usually rush to feel. So

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Speaker 1: boredom isn't a gap to close, it's actually a doorway

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Speaker 1: to walk through. So I hope you got value from this.

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Speaker 1: It's something that really fascinates me, the fact, and I

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Speaker 1: kind of feel like there is a lot of potential

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Speaker 1: out there that's not going to be reached because we

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Speaker 1: don't allow ourselves this space to just think and be still.

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Speaker 1: And if you enjoyed it, please pass it on. And

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Speaker 1: if you didn't, if you actually were bored by this,

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Speaker 1: then congratulations, you've just had your little dose of intentional boredom.

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Speaker 1: So I have a great week everyone, I'll catch you

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Speaker 1: next week. So yeah,