Hi there! In my last post I breefly touched upon an important subject. I have an important news bulletin for you folks. There is a new malady running amok. It’s not AIDS or swine flew, it is far more contagious than leprosy or the Bubonic Plague and its effects are 1000 times more far-reaching than cancer. The worse news is that there is no pill or vaccine against it, no doctor has ever been able to diagnose it and Even the world’s top medical dictionaries don’t mention it (not to my knoledge anyway)… It is FBS, or Frustration & Boredom Syndrome (alternatively known among the less-educated as “Fabulous Bullshit”). It’s a real trickster this little one, I’ll tell you that. In the following lines, I will describe the symptoms of and provide a possible cure for FBS.
A Day Without Daylight
As you rad this, you might remember days when: 1) you had nothing better to do than to fiddle around with your pen between your fingers, 2) you stood in bed on looooong rainy days, unable to sleep but also unable to do anything else 3) you had someone with you and you desperately tried to start a conversation despite not having anything to talk about and 4) standing in front of your PC doing whatever and complaining 4 times or more in the interval of 10 minutes about how bored you were. These are the 4 main symptoms of FBS. There are others of course, but these are the most common and the most evident.
How do you get it?
Ever heard of something called “learned paralisis”? Well, this also is learned. You are (obviously) not “infected” with it in the literal sense. But certain attitudes and mannerisms have the habit of going from one generation to the next, everyone making them all the more inescapable for everyone else because those things seem all the more natural and “default” in a way. For the most part, you learn what is usually boring (like long rainy days). Naturally, there are things which we ourselves find uninteresting (like a certain kind of movie, or golf), but you get the idea 
.
Cure…
Nothing too fancy. Simply remember that there is nothing to be done. Nothing to struggle for or against. Nothing more important than any other thing, all being equal. Sample: You have some work to do (whatever that may be), but the weather is just dandy and you want to go out for a walk or meet some friends or some such thing. Inevitably, you get frustrated (excluding the case where you just drop the project/activity and get out the door). When this happens, remind yourself: “All things are equally important, equally relevant”. Then go back to work and finish it. Sample B: You have absolutely nothing to do and nothing notable is going on; you end up wanting to have something to do, but there is nothing. Again, you get frustrated. The problem with FBS is simply this: people want to relax when there is work and want to work when they have an opportunity to relax. Remember this quote from Osho (died in 1990):
Work is necessary for you to live, but remember that the main thing in life is to play.
So the best thing to do is to realise that both work and relaxation are parts (equally important parts) of a game; a fun game which ends only when you die (not even then, because the sleep of death is also part of the game–more on the Great Game later). We do not live to work, we work to live. When work stops you from living and when your frustrated thoughts stop you from working, keep in mind that work is the tool. When you work, work; when you relax, relax. And when you work, work diligently, when you relax, relax fully. Then all boredom and frustration will vanish by itself. At all times remember: there is nothing to do besides what you are doing in the present; just like when you are in a bakery you do not ask for meet, if there is something you are doing in the present moment (whatsoever it may be, from sleeping to mountain-climbing), do not say to yourself “I should be doing something else, like <insert>”. When you are in bed resting and there is nothing you have to do, simply rest (or whatch a movie or whatever). Don’t reproach yourself for not “doing something useful”; vice-versa, when you have to do something, do not presume that that “isn’t what you’re supposed to be doing”. Life is a river; flow with it, not against it.
Enjoy life in all its aspects; there is nothing you should be doing besides what you do at any given moment. Be flexible and learn to ride the wind. Come again!
Yours,
Victor
