For a college kid there is nothing worse than being bored. Maybe not everyone feels this way, but I certainly do. When I am bored, I have too much time to think. There usually isn't a spare moment for me to be bored, or to have time to just sit and think, except late at night, but usually by then I am pretty much asleep.
Boredom is probably one of the worst feelings, because it is so hard to get rid of. I sometimes become extremely motivated when I am bored, and I clean an entire room, and sometimes just to do something, I will walk around outside, even in extremely cold weather, just to do something. At least when we are busy, we are doing something, and our brain has things that can distract us, and defeat that dreaded feeling of boredom inside of us. Even if we are constantly busy, we become accustomed to it, so it doesn't usually feel like we are constantly on the go.
It doesn't ever seem that way until we have nothing to do. It is when we have nothing to do that you realize just how busy your life actually is. I have classes five days of the week, research on some of those days, and then on the weekends I do my homework and go to work. Even though that doesn't sound like an overwhelming amount of stuff to be doing from week to week, but it is. You spend a lot of time traveling from class to class, studying, writing papers, and then by the time you are done, it is usually time for bed to start it all over for the next day.
Boredom is one of the worst feelings in the world, because your brain that is usually going a million miles a minute, suddenly has no where to focus all of that power, and nothing to do with all that time that you have to waste when given a free minute. When you have an entire day free, it becomes almost painstakingly slow. Every minute that passes feels like it has been an hour, now imagine having to go through several hours like that. Your brain does what it does best, overthink, just to try to give you something to do, and sometimes that isn't always the most pleasant experience.
When I am bored, I will literally do anything to try and get myself out of that feeling. I will sit outside in the cold, go for a walk, clean, organize, do homework in advance, you name it. It also brings along so many other feelings around with it. Like loneliness, sadness, anxiety, and paranoia, and none of those are particularly fun. Distracting yourself isn't as easy as it seems, because no one really knows you better than your brain knows you. Being the avid movie watcher that I am, you would think that movies are a great distraction, but that isn't always the case, because I sometimes get bored with watching a movie. I guess you could say it is a curse that we have when our brains get used to going and going without ever really having a break.
If I had to pick between being busy and being bored, I would much rather feel like I am busy, making a contribution to something in the world, than sitting there doing nothing but spinning in my chair wondering what everyone else in the world is doing. I honestly don't understand how some people enjoy being bored...maybe it can be relaxing to some people, but for a person who is usually a busybody, being bored is like a silent killer that means you aren't doing something useful with your time. It makes it much easier to want to sleep all day, which isn't something that I would typically do, and something that I don't think is very productive or healthy.
Which is worse you ask? Well it is different from person to person, but if I had to pick between the two, I would always say that being bored is worse than being busy, because when you are busy you know that you are getting things done, and when you are bored, you are much more likely to do activities that will only benefit you in that moment, to pass by the painstakingly slow hours that will eventually pass you.
