Why you need to be bored

If you ever find yourself stuck in traffic at Mohakhali Flyover, you will probably notice your hand reaching for your phone before the CNG ahead even coughs out a cloud of black smoke. It does not matter whether it is TikTok, Facebook or your cousin's wedding album from 2013. Anything seems better than staring at the back of a truck that proudly declares "Whole Bangladesh Five Tonne" in red paint. We are a nation that would rather risk a phone snatcher than risk being bored. 

This fear of boredom is not mine alone. Arthur Brooks, a Harvard professor, calls boredom a lost skill. When we are not busy, a quiet part of the brain switches on. It is called the default mode network. This is when uncomfortable but necessary thoughts surface. Questions about purpose. Questions about meaning. Questions we usually try to silence with a glowing screen. 

I once tried a bold experiment in my own boardroom. I asked my CXOs to leave their phones outside during weekly meetings. In my imagination, this was going to be a historic leadership moment. People would listen deeply, reflect more and share better ideas. What I actually got was a group of accomplished executives shifting in their chairs like students in detention. Their eyes looked lost, as if the world outside had ended. 

To be fair, listening and learning did improve. Ideas became clearer. Discussions were sharper. But judging from their faces, they were suffering silently. A few later admitted it felt useful. Most others probably cursed me in their quiet. That is the thing about boredom. It helps us grow, but it rarely feels good while it is happening. 

There is real science behind this discomfort. In one experiment by Dan Gilbert, people were asked to sit quietly in a room for fifteen minutes with nothing to do. The only other option was a button that gave a mild electric shock. A majority pressed the button. Pain felt easier than silence. 

We may laugh at that, but it is exactly what we do every day. The moment we are still, we pick up the phone. We scroll through weddings, lunches, bad selfies and political dramas to escape the sound of our own thoughts. In doing so, we silence the part of the mind that asks big questions. We make life noisier but emptier. 

When we remove boredom, we also remove the space where meaning grows. Over time, noise erodes clarity. Anxiety and emptiness creep in. It is like living in a house where the television is always on. Slowly, we forget how silence sounds. 

Brooks calls this the doom loop of meaning. His advice is simple. Allow boredom to return. Do it deliberately. Take a walk without your phone or headphones, sit in the car without music or podcasts, and give your brain at least fifteen quiet minutes each day. 

At first, it will feel like torture. Your brain will scream like a hungry baby. But slowly, it will calm down. Your thoughts will settle. You will notice things you missed before. A face. A sound. A question you were avoiding. Work may start to feel less dull. Life may begin to feel more real. 

Boredom is not your enemy. It is a quiet friend you have been ignoring. It is the doorway to reflection, imagination and uncomfortable but honest truths. Those phone-free meetings did not make me the most popular person in the room, but they gave us something rare: moments of silence, moments of clarity and moments of real listening. 

We spend so much time running away from boredom that we forget it is not chasing us. It is waiting for us to pause. In a world drowning in noise, boredom may be the simplest and strongest way to find our way back to ourselves. 

The writer is the president of the Institute of Cost and Management Accountants of Bangladesh and founder of BuildCon Consultancies Ltd