Growing up, I was known to be a jack of all trades, but a master at none. Every new hobby, sport, or activity I tried, ended before they even began. When I was six, I began swimming lessons. Oh How Fun! It brought me so much joy splashing in the waters and diving for rings. Soon enough, swimming became a chore. As I was racing laps back and forth down the lane, I huffed and puffed. My fleeting love for swimming was gone. Then I began art classes. I was so fascinated with all the colors and tools. With a blink of an eye, my interest in art was gone as well. My brief infatuations in things always disappeared after a few months. I was very self-aware. I would always question myself. Was there something wrong with me? Why can’t I just be normal? There was not one thing I was genuinely interested in, in the long run. My relationship with my “momentary interests” was being served like fast food. To this day, I still cannot sit down and watch a movie for just ten minutes without getting bored and grumpy. So I did some research. To figure out myself. I was reading through this article post by The CUT, and I was really surprised. Psychology always has the answer to everything. Melissa Dahl explains “Behavioral-activation types are high in sensation-seeking; these are the people who are jumping out of airplanes, traveling to exciting places, trying new foods… They’re looking for the next hit of adrenaline”. I am this type of person. Anybody else? I’m always looking for the next thing that is going to stimulate my brain and cause that adrenaline to start rushing down my spine. Dopamine is a drug. I’m always looking for the next rush of excitment. I’m always that one friend who wants to try a new restuarant, explore a different place, or requesting to do something crazy like indoor sky diving. I’m always seeking for fun. Studies have shown every emotion serves a purpose. Boredness pushes us towards meaning. Without it, I wouldn’t have been able to discover my passion for Emergency Medicine. The first time I heard of that field, all I remembered was that it must be high pressure. ER physicians work in fast paced environments, enduring high stress, spontaneous shifts, but I’ve heard there is a lot of excitement in this particular specialty. After doing research and going to hospitals for a student internship over the summer, my interest has developed even more in healthcare. I want to save peoples’ lives and also do something that brings me excitement. Since the working environment is constantly changing in the ER field, I knew right off the bat that this would be a great job for me to pursue. My boredness had led me to discover what type of person I am. Which has led me to find some purpose in my life. Life is too short to waste. So I knew that my eternal boredness served a purpose for me. It has led me to better understand myself. Now I don’t think of myself as a freak or a psycho just because I was constantly lacking motivation and interest. I think more of myself as a sensational seeker. Someone who consistently seeks out sources of happiness. Probably one of the best traits that I now embrace is my constant need for change. It shows how I will do almost anything to find things that make me feel enjoyment and excitement. I firmly believe that is my purpose. To find my sources of happiness, to be at peace with my mind and body, and to become successful in the areas that I have a love for. A struggle of mine has always been forming relationships with others because of my tendency to always get bored during conversations. I know that in emergency medicine, it’s important that a doctor has to form a good relationship with their patients. However, this has helped me better form relationships with others knowing my weaknesses and how I can improve them. So I know there is stigma around boredness. It is often used synonymously with adjectives like “lazy”. But I truly believe that every emotion serves a purpose. Even though boredness is often associated with a negative connotation, I knew that what I am feeling is valid and has meaning to it. In the past, I would still have thought there was something wrong with me in the way that I felt. But I cannot believe that I am going to say that my eternal boredness is one of my most unique and beneficial traits that serve as a part of my identity.
The meaning of my writing
By Cynthia Zeng
First day of first grade. I recall myself sitting in a mini seat with my name taped on a piece of paper at the top left corner. The teacher was handing out pieces of loose leaf paper so we could spell out our names. I vaguely remember that I had felt bored and did not want to write down the letters of my name, one by one. But I did it anyways and at the time, all I thought about was why I had to keep re-writing words over and over again.
Fast forward six years. I’m sitting in the front of my english class, as my teacher is giving a lecture on how to format a essay. I recall my attention span was focused on the notes my bestfriend and I were passing to each other. As my english teacher wraps up on how to draft a conclusion, I vaguely remember myself groaning silently. Time to write another essay……. What poem will it be about this time? Or maybe it’s going to be an analysis of another fictional character that I don’t care about.
As I am starting to type up my essay on the character development of Johnny Cade from the Outsiders, I still recall the boredness and emptiness that I was feeling for those few weeks. I was impassively typing up thousands of words, carefully following the instructions posted on the board, taking specific measures to make sure I am doing it “correctly”. To be more straight forward, I felt like a robot programmed to blindly follow the instructions on the smartboard in order to perform the task successfully. Three weeks of endless drafting and procrastination go by…… and finally my essay is complete. It has the three required body paragraphs, a introduction, conclusion, title, all incorporated with the right details.
At this point in my life, I still didn’t understand the purpose of writing. I was oblivious to the reason why others wrote. I never even questioned why I wrote. I hate to admit it, but I had no passion and no interest, to write. Whenever the topic of writing was brought up in my conversations with my classmates, it always consisted of two things. Procrastination and dread. I remember the hundreds of passionless conversations I had with my friends about the essays we wrote in class. Nobody would have ever guessed that one day I would have developed a liking for writing.
Fast forward to junior year of high school. Now the essays I wrote were even more complex and structured. I remember all I could think about was, How could I throw up a great essay in forty-five minutes? How could I get an A? At this point in my life, I actually did start to question the purpose of writing. What was the purpose of analyzing every sentence of those passages? What was the point of following those highly complex and strictly formatted essays? AHA. So I can score high on the SAT reading and writing section. I actually thought I had the answer to that question. Little did I know that I was far from the truth.
As a few months of the semester goes by, my teacher suddenly introduces to our class something completely different. Writing personal narratives. I had just learned the name of it. Creative writing. I had thought nothing of it at the moment. I had expected there would be a specific format and careful instructions once again posted on the board. Then I realized there wasn’t. The instructions were minimal and my teacher had strongly encouraged us to write freely. She said it was our time to write about whatever we wanted. She wanted us to take the pressure of writing a formal essay off our shoulders this time.
So I did. I wrote a narrative about a traumatic experience I had as a child. I was stuck in my mom’s car, alone, on a very hot, humid day. I remember as I was writing it, I felt spasms of joy. I felt like I could express my feelings and experiences in a way that I had never done before. My attention was purely focused on one thing. Creating a passionate piece of work. As of now, I don’t look at writing as purely a chore anymore but also as a opportunity for me to express myself in different ways. Now reflecting back on the past, I could finally answer the question this time.