Bored from Information Overload?

There are plenty of books and websites dedicated to starting a new project, whether it's organizing your home, sharpening your time management skills, building a nursery, starting a blog, joining a Bible Study, getting married and staying married. All of these "projects", big or small, have the same key elements: Set Goals. Establish Priorities. Develop a Game Plan. I completely agree that motivation to start the task is imperative, but what about finishing? None of these books address the forks in the road each one of us encounters along the way. When the fun and "newness" wears off, or an urgent email from your boss demanding you scratch the business plan you're almost through with and focus on another plan. Or, Being just as determined in the 4th quarter as a losing team fan as you were at kickoff. (I’m talking to you Cowboy fans)
Nobody understands boredom better than me—I was diagnosed with ADD just one week ago. Since then, I’ve delved into the widely diagnosed disease that has spread like wildfire over the past decade.

This excerpt was taken from John Spalding’s article you can find here: http://www.somareview.com/boredom.cfm
(great read after you read my entire post, of course)
It may be an entertainment overload that’s boring us. “When stimulation comes at us from every side,” explains Winter, “we reach a point where we cannot respond with much depth to anything. Bombarded with so much that is exciting and demands our attention, we tend to become unable to discriminate and choose from among the many options. The result is that we shut down our attention to everything.”

You wonder why advertising companies spend millions of dollars on 30 second commercials. The emails I write and receive today have no grammatical accuracy whatsoever; the texts are shortened to abbreviated acronyms, phrases, numbers, that I usually have my 8 year old neighbor interpret for me. I often refer to the Cheesecake Factory Menu being a joke. There are too many choices from pizza to pad thai, and after flipping through their book of choices, I’m too exhausted to eat. Take me to Houston’s, where I’ve tried all 8 of their entrees and it’s always good. KISS…Keep it Simple Stupid is my motto. Because brain overload is destroying us.

There are 2 types of boredom (in my opinion):

Lack of Stimuli: you’re in a doctor’s waiting room and have left your blackberry/ipod/whatever in the car. The only thing to read is Highlights for Kids and Diabetes Management, and the colorful pharmaceutical pamphlets that always convince me, “I need this…I’ll ask my doctor for a sample.” (That’s another topic, but pharm companies have brilliant marketing campaigns)
Too much stimuli: too much distraction can actually cause boredom. Sounds extremely contradictory? Not really.  (another excerpt taken from link above)

“The brain is always adjusting to new stimuli,” says Augustin de la Peña, a psychophysiologist who has studied boredom for 30 years. “Once the brain has seen something new a few times,it no longer finds it interesting. The brain’s ante for stimulation is always being upped, just as a drug addict needs larger and larger doses to get high.” ……“We live in an ADD culture, and the effects are crippling. Students today are very good at retrieving information. They can scan the Web quickly and find what they need. But to get them to read just a paragraph in a text, to really mull it over and make sense of it, is increasingly difficult. As a result, some of their cognitive skills atrophy.”

The RESULT: EMPTINESS (Stay with me here, this is important!!)

Boredom has been considered taboo to study in Psychology since the 1930’s. It’s impossible to measure boredom in the way that you can a rat’s success in finding cheese in a maze. We want to think that we do most things in life out of a sense of nobility, and not just because they’re bored and have nothing better to do. (Another excerpt from the link above)
But maybe being bored is exactly where God wants us to be. Quiet. Examine our life. Pray to Him. Read His Word (Bible) for encouragement. If we listen, He’ll whisper, “you’re bored because you’re not seeking me to fill your time, entertainment, pleasure, and struggles….24/7.” After 32 years of filling my emptiness with different worldly choices, I am finally understanding boredom = emptiness of Jesus Christ.

Proverbs 4:25 NLT
Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don’t get sidetracked; keep your feet from following evil.