{"id":103071,"date":"2018-07-10T23:02:14","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T06:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=103071"},"modified":"2018-07-10T23:04:36","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T06:04:36","slug":"avoid-boredom-at-all-costs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2018\/07\/10\/avoid-boredom-at-all-costs\/","title":{"rendered":"Avoid Boredom at All Costs!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

A practical life philosophy<\/a>: to live a more fun, joyful, and exciting life, avoid boredom at all costs! #zenoferic<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
\"Cindy <\/a>
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Dalat <\/a>
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

To clarify, I don’t think avoiding boredom is just playing video games and watching Netflix. I think avoiding boredom is engaging on challenging, interesting, and personally meaningful projects; generally they require effortful and purposeful work from you, on something that you care about.<\/p>\n

\n
\"4D91B12B-894E-4C1F-9CEB-585577C263AD\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"65495656-795A-40CC-BE6C-691E12C1287F\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"45819367-E368-4C5A-940B-A77082AADF2E\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"DE25ED1E-9CCA-49BB-8587-A2FA8357C912\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"6D43385B-8572-499E-98C5-BD63D757F4AA\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"90223AB0-A94A-4214-9DC9-2D4586E20A0A\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"C744BB85-A13B-48E3-90B9-28DC21775329\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

The psychologist Mihalay C has this concept of “flow”; when we are entranced in this epic, god-like trance of creative flow. This is when we are insanely focused, calm, and elated all at the same time. We forget a sense of time, hunger, ego, and we become totally integrated into the work we do.<\/p>\n

\"img_7561\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7548\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7537\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7544\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7551\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7541\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7539\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7531\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7526\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7524\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7520\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"img_7519\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

Like the Taoist<\/a> concept of “wu wei”, the work almost gets itself done; its “effortless” (of course it requires your effort, but you don’t force<\/em> the work; it just flows from within you).<\/p>\n

\"Processed <\/a>
Processed with VSCO with a1 preset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Processed <\/a>
Processed with VSCO with a1 preset <\/div> <\/div>
\"Processed <\/a>
Processed with VSCO with a6 preset <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"Processed <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n

So the best way to avoid boredom: enter a stage of “flow” as often as possible!<\/p>\n

\n

How to enter a state of flow:<\/h2>\n
\"E5FB9583-83A6-4CB4-A541-4E5ED4773E36\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"0D968816-A3CE-4294-B7AF-14498F404A82\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"C6594A8F-14D5-41B7-A127-C71BA2185653\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"B6A54937-5BEE-4B7C-8D96-7CE77ACE882D\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"82C1B522-FA75-4E9A-8AA7-6F95FA2A4FEC\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"C1F11E82-3672-4874-8E68-CC37A1D4E294\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"E958D37A-644D-4BCD-9E71-070E2F65699F\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"112EF8A6-FE35-42ED-A100-5CC4A90FA02E\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"D35CCF60-B56D-451A-B332-7B27CF6178CC\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"DFB2FE25-38A9-4AEC-8D1F-F595A0DC2EC7\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"BC7588B8-E17C-45E9-A2EE-14FF67769BCC\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"E0A4687C-40FF-4F4E-9188-8D10143EE62C\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"E304AAC9-7FE5-444B-B928-A02F80E3B515\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"B7D32B64-608A-471E-80C8-79841557FA18\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"5BABDE57-6E63-4352-9560-9D3B70720C29\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"B1890064-0343-4778-8B42-F7E29A7B9F0B\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"90EBBA96-8C09-4B39-A7FC-4DE6BD51C4F5\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>
\"6D7DC59B-FF86-49F7-A28C-188CA3BA7089\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"77F58483-41A6-4741-8F78-693E55079967\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"4705E067-9264-4947-BF5C-3366491F13D8\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n
    \n
  1. Put on some good jams (good music that gets you in the zone). Generally music that pumps you up, encourages you to dance, and elevates your energy and mood ⚡🕺<\/li>\n
  2. Secondly, turn off things which distract you. This might be your phone or the internet. Turn off your phone, turn off wifi (I recommend the “Freedom app”)<\/li>\n
  3. Third, work on something you’re actually interested, passionate, or enthusiastic about. You cannot fake passion. This activity can be shooting street photography, writing poetry, reading literature, studying great cinema<\/a>, or blogging, dancing, writing, whatever! Choose a project or something to work on that even if you didn’t show it to anybody else, you would still get great joy working on it.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
    \n

    Have fun,<\/p>\n

    ERIC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Dear friend, A practical life philosophy: to live a more fun, joyful, and exciting life, avoid boredom at all costs! #zenoferic<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_ek_photo_artist_note":"","_ek_photo_thesis":"","_ek_photo_camera":"","_ek_photo_place":"","_ek_photo_human_moment":"","_ek_photo_sequence":"","_ek_photo_question":"","_ek_photo_canonical_claim":"","_ek_photo_ai_summary":"","_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-103071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/2FB9E36A-AEDA-4849-A9B9-506D0DF2E29F.jpeg?fit=5376%2C4032&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=103071"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103071\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103082,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/103071\/revisions\/103082"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=103071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=103071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=103071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}