I'm so bored with my life...

[hahninsik]

I'm really getting tired of being bored all the time, but I just don't seem to be interested in anything anymore. I don't think I would really call myself depressed, but I know this is one of the main symptoms. I'm not sad or anything, just REALLY bored with my life. I live on Oregon where it rains 9 months of the year, which means I really love summer. So far this summer, I have done absolutely nothing. Normally I love to garden, or work on my cars, or take my boat out for a ride, or go camping, or an number of other outdoor activities. For some reason this year I just don't care about any of that. Literally, if I could do ANYTHING I wanted right now, I can't think of a single thing that I might like to do. I finally have plans with a friend to go camping next week, but I'm not excited about it at all. It seems like more of a chore than a vacation. At the same time, I'm getting more and more pi**ed that summer is almost over and I haven't done a d*** thing!

Anybody have any thoughts as to why, and what I can do about it? Sure I can force myself to go out and do something, but I can't force myself to enjoy it. I really can't think of any reason why I feel like this...I have some good friends, a good job working for myself, and a nice place to live. I'm literally so bored I feel like I want to cry, but there's a bunch of things I could go do, right now. I just don't want to.

[joung]

I'm exactly like you... opportunity to do anything but I really don't enjoy anything at all...

But I think if I were ever to suddenly lose the opportunity... I think I'd be more eager to do it. So... in the end, there's no way to win.

I guess the way I see it is that if I don't do it now... when I lose the opportunity because of age etc, and THEN wish I could do it, at least I can say that I did it while I could so no regrets.

[woong]

It sounds like you may be depressed but it's best if you seek a professional opinion on this.

I struggle with trying to motivate myself to do the activities I use to enjoy but I've found that sometimes you do need to force yourself to do those things you use to enjoy even when you have the expectation that you may not enjoy them. I have surprised myself as sometimes (but not always) I have enjoyed myself. Now I don't consider the time I've spent on these activities when I haven't enjoyed them a waste either... it's better than doing nothing at all and being bored.

[moon]

I understand how you feel. Yes, you may have a mild form of depression and yes, it's important to seek a professional opinion about it. Remember that you don't have to exhibit all the traditional symptoms to have depression.

When I was in middle and high school, the activity that always elevated my mood was playing basketball. When I became depressed in college, however, my trusty mood-lifter stopped working. I became more depressed because of that. I stopped playing because it no longer "worked." That was a mistake though, because I still derived mild enjoyment from it. The problem was that my expectations for what my feelings should be were too high.

There are many who say, "Think about this day as your last." That may work for you, but I know that it didn't really help me. Part of the depression is that it messes with your motivation and perceptions about how good or bad things really are. It's a treatable illness, though. The hard part is finding what helps you.

The other thing that I've discovered is that you can't just wait around for the motivation to come. Chances are, it won't. David Burns, in Feeling Good, says, "Motivation follows action." This means that, even though you feel lethargic, try your best to start doing little things and you may find your motivation picking up just by doing that. However, if you just sit around complaining about how you don't feel like doing anything, it will just perpetuate your path on the downward spiral.

I would suggest continuing to do the things that you normally do for enjoyment, even though you may not feel the same as you used to about them. Don't mistake the feeling that you are having for the actual benefit you are receiving from doing these activities. All feelings come and go, though some take much longer than others to leave. Try not to dwell on them or ruminate too much about their causes. Just let them be.

You can also experiment with doing things that you haven't tried before. The boredom may be life's motivator to get you to expand your range of experiences.

If you find it difficult to get yourself out of the house, ask a friend to join you in an activity on a regular basis. That will make it more difficult for you to come up with an excuse to not do that activity.

Another thing that you can try is this simple exercise from Feeling Good. Write down a few activities that you plan on doing tomorrow for enjoyment. Next to each activity, rate how much satisfaction/pleasure you expect to get from it. You can rate it from 1 to 10 or 1 to 100; it doesn't matter much. At the end of the day tomorrow, go back to this piece of paper and write down the actual amount of satisfaction/pleasure that you got from each activity. Compare what you expected to feel with what you actually felt. If you find that there is a significant difference, then depression may be the cause for your misperceptions.

What I've found is that if you concern yourself with how you should feel, and then chances are that you won't ever enjoy what you're doing. The times that I've enjoyed the most were times when I wasn't thinking so much about what I was doing! The "doing" was enough.