Learning to Sit With Myself

My client introduced me to this really cool study being done at Harvard. It’s about how important it is for us to be bored. The professor, Arthur C. Brooks, talks about how boredom is something we no longer feel because we’re addicted to our phones, which act as a quick fix for the boredom we experience. He explains that the default mode network—a system in the brain that activates when we’re not focused on any particular task—is no longer being stimulated because we’re always doing something.

He goes on to add that boredom is not just uncomfortable—it’s also fuel for creativity. It puts us in spots where we start to think about the meaning of our lives and ask larger questions that might feel unpleasant to confront. And so we quickly reach out to our phones to avoid those uncomfortable realms.

Interestingly, over the last several years, reports of anxiety and depression have been soaring. Our society hasn’t been more mentally ill than it is now. The study connects this to the arrival of phones in our lives, which hijacked the small pockets of time we would otherwise spend being bored.

The generation before ours struggled far less with these disorders, partly because they had the tolerance to sit with boredom. And that tolerance usually serves as an alchemical potion for answering big questions and opening the path to realignment when we catch ourselves out of sync.

Now, I know I’m making it sound THAT simple. As if letting boredom speak to me will give me all the answers and magically align my life. Without the larger context of the world around us, and the realities we live in, that would make sense. But not everyone can afford to sit with their boredom, let it speak, and then make the changes they want.

That requires a certain kind of privilege. And by privilege, I don’t just mean material or financial. I mean having emotional resources and a sense of safety across important realms—emotional, psychological, financial, physical, and spiritual.

Our tolerance for boredom has systematically reduced over time, so insidiously that we don’t realise anything is wrong. It’s like the frog in boiling water—it doesn’t notice the rising temperature when it happens slowly, unlike being dropped into boiling water at the start.

That makes me realise how lately, I’ve been feeling really numbed out—my senses no longer feel heightened or alive. I can’t remember the last time I truly relished something. I know that sounds terrible, but maybe there are two things happening here. One, I’m constantly bombarded with stimuli—so much that nothing feels elevating anymore. Two, the people creating things are also constantly consuming, which means they’re rarely bored.

They’re probably creating because their job or survival depends on it—like a chef cooking, a content creator posting videos, or a musician releasing tracks. But somewhere along the way, the food, the music, the videos—they’ve started to feel soulless. They’re made for short dopamine spikes. And maybe I’m old-school, but those fleeting bursts of sensation don’t satisfy me anymore. They don’t feed my soul.

It’s entirely possible that this is also a me problem—that I’m over-stimulated too. But I honestly don’t remember the last time I sat at a restaurant and was moved by the food I ate. None of it seems to touch me anymore. And maybe that’s the point—our senses have adapted to this constant hum of stimulation, so much so that stillness, slowness, or depth now feel foreign.

We’ve been programmed to feel wired and to normalise the presence of phones and screens so gradually that our disconnection from ourselves no longer feels strange. Phones, and the constant access to information, have become so natural that we don’t even think of them as a problem. What we’ve ended up erasing, systematically, is our access to boredom.

Could this be boredom?

And it’s terrifying to be bored.

I tried it yesterday. I was stuck in Bangalore traffic, going from HSR Layout to Koramangala. Maps said it would take about 16 minutes, but it took twice as long. At the start of the ride, I told myself I’d keep my phone in my bag and not look at it until I arrived. Sixteen minutes—how hard could it be?

It turned out to be the most uncomfortable few minutes of my life. At first, I looked out the window and judged everyone else on their phones. Then I laughed at myself for being so judgemental, because I would’ve done the same if it wasn’t for this odd experiment.

After catching my judgement and laughing it off, my mind started planning the next few months: birthdays coming up, trips to take, gifts to buy, home projects to do. By then I wondered, “Why am I not at my venue yet? It must be past 16 minutes! Should I check my phone now?”

Another part of me said, “Nope, the point is to wait until you arrive.” Then another voice argued, “But we agreed to 16 minutes, that was the deal!” And then another part of me noticed this argument and psychoanalysed it as perfectionism.

Down the rabbit hole I went: “This is because I’m so perfectionistic, I torture myself to do things right and see them through—and it’ll be the end of me.” Then another voice said, “But that’s what makes you good at boredom! Your perfectionism is helping you.”

And as I write this, I realise—I completely lost the plot.

Truth be told, we’re all systematically f*cked. We’re wired to stay in the past or the future, and we’re far from being “good” (if that’s even the goal) at being bored.

Having failed miserably at it, I’m going to wake up tomorrow and try again. Maybe I won’t magically slip into flow, presence, and creativity the next time I skip looking at my phone in an autoride. But maybe I’ll resist checking my phone one more time in my existence—and that’s good enough for me.

Maybe, given the world we live in and how we’re coded to stay distracted, I’ll never fully access the magic boredom offers. But even if it makes only a small difference in my wiring, it might become generational wealth I can pass down if I choose to have kids. A tiny sliver, but still worth it. At the very least, I’ll have a better relationship with dopamine so they won’t have to struggle as much.

Something I noticed when I let myself.

Through this, I’m not just trying to heal my relationship with boredom—I’m also trying to heal my colonial trauma of perfectionism.

Intergenerationally, we’ve carried colonial blueprints of discipline, obedience, structure, and systemic shame. Success was tied to being better than others. We were browbeaten into believing success looked a certain way—often one that demanded disembodiment.

From sitting in classrooms for hours to equating success with compliance, we were cut off from our ancient wisdom and practices. Indigenous knowledge was dismissed as barbaric, “tribal,” and uncouth, while Western imperialist ideologies became the metrics of success and development. They thrived on divide-and-rule tactics that dismantled our collective strength. Even though they “left,” their wounds still echo in our bodies across generations.

The same systems remain in our education, work, and family structures. And here we are—a country that prides itself on culture, yet rarely questions whether that culture has been colonially coded for the last 78 years or more.

As I decolonise myself, I remember my ancestors—the indigenous wisdom they carried, the parts that may still live in me, and the parts erased by time, imperial pressures, patriarchy, and colonial powers. Their neural wiring lives in my genetics, along with their trauma.

When I become someone’s ancestor, I hope they’ll find boredom a little more accessible than I did. And for that, I refuse to look at my phone the next time I’m stuck in Bangalore traffic.

Hi, I hope this piece resonated with you. I’m Sanjana, and I write about what moves me, makes me uncomfortable, or simply lets me feel something. Most of my writing carries a decolonial or ancestral-awareness lens—it’s a perspective I navigate the world with, and there’s no going back once you see through it. If that stirs something in you, stay connected—more thoughts are on the way.