Just be bored, and you'll level up. In fact, I've been bored lately, and I'm congratulating myself for it. I want to share why being bored is a great sign that things are going really well in your life, and what I've learned about turning boredom into excitement, fun, and passion in a healthy way. I've been bored a lot in my life, and at the time I would get desperate for some excitement, for some action. But let's start by asking the more useful question: why am I bored?
Why I'm bored: because I just succeeded
Let's look at my life right now. I'm bored because I've just succeeded. All of the stuff that was exciting, that was filled with drama and action, it's all gone. I've broken addictions like alcoholism. I used to be massively bored until I discovered alcohol. Then I wasn't bored anymore, but I was stressed, depressed, anxious, scared, and full of self-harm thoughts. But I wasn't bored. And if I was bored, I drank. And then because I drank, I wasn't bored anymore.
Now I'm grateful that I can stay with being bored and realize where it's coming from. The financial stress that I had last time I was really bored, I created that financial stress. And now that financial stress is gone. My wife and I have enough money in the bank that we could both not make any money the rest of the year and be fine. What's counterintuitive about that is that it's shockingly boring.
A lot of us thrive on drama, and stress, and anxiety, and fear. If you're used to that, and suddenly whatever problem it is you actually solve it, things get quiet. If you've been drained financially and made a bunch of bad decisions, like I had in my life, then reaching the other side feels strange. Now that my wife and I have the highest levels of financial abundance we've seen since we first started dating, my financial situation is boring. I found great investments. People pay $200 an hour on jerrybanfield.com to have a call with me. I get thousands a month for making videos that I'm passionate about and enjoy. I turn down all kinds of opportunities to make money. And ironically, I'm bored. Why? Because there's no action. There's no excitement. Everything is easy.
I see that this is a chance to level up, and explore, and expand my being. Or it's a chance to regress and go back into the same crap I've been through before. What I used to do in the past is relapse on one thing or another when I was bored. That was the most dangerous time for me, as an alcoholic, as a gambling addict, as a person with some sex issues and other behavioral addictions, like being addicted to being broke and making bad financial decisions, and having drama in relationships. I'm glad that I finally am comfortable enough to handle being bored, and then set conscious intentions for where I want the excitement, and the passion, and the thrill, and the fun to come from.
The Marvel Snap lesson: addiction is fun, not boring
For example, I have a gaming channel. It's actually my third gaming channel on YouTube. I've been kind of bored with the videos I've been making and the games I've been playing. And I see that that's a good thing. Because when I was playing Marvel Snap, I wasn't bored. But I felt addicted to Marvel Snap, which is why I made a video about it. I played it for 10 hours, and I said I was quitting it because it was addictive, and I don't want to experience addiction.
One thing about addiction is that it's often not boring. It's fun. And that's why, often when we're bored, we've actually done really well stamping out and separating from the addictive, stressful, bad behaviors that were interesting. Then what happened? A week or two went by, and I was bored. So I made a video about Marvel Snap saying, now I'm all in. And then you'll notice every video on my gaming channel after that was about Marvel Snap, until a week or two later, when I'm quitting Marvel Snap again. Then I made several videos where I'm kind of bored playing games that I'm not really interested in that much, but at least I'm not addicted. Meanwhile, the rest of my life is going more smoothly.
When I was addicted to playing Marvel Snap, it was fun, but I also felt bad. I asked my wife, I'm bored, I don't know what to do, should I play some more Marvel Snap? And she said, sure, if you'd like to feel some more pain and frustration, go ahead and play some more Marvel Snap. And I was like, wow, that's so accurate. I'm glad today that I can see that being bored is a sign that I'm actually doing better, that I'm not just jumping immediately back into an addiction. I've written more about this exact pattern in how I spent $2,000 on Marvel Snap and quit, and about how I now treat video games like alcohol.
Setting a conscious intention: fun, but not addictive
Now what I'm doing is consciously setting an intention. There was one game I played, Returnal, that was fun and exciting but not addictive. So I'm setting the intention: dear mind, body, spirit, soul, universe, please find me a game that's fun, but not addictive. Like Hogwarts Legacy. Hogwarts Legacy was fun, but it wasn't addictive. Hades was fun, but not addictive. I played Hogwarts Legacy and had a great time. I experienced passion, but I wasn't addicted to it. I could play for an hour, or five hours, and then just put it down and be excited about the next time I was going to play.
But when I played Marvel Snap, it was always, well, this I have to get good at. I've found that for me, competitive video games tend to trigger the addictive streak. Single-player games, I can have fun playing, like Hades. I had a great time playing Hades and did a review of it that almost nobody watched. But it was fun for me. With as many views as I get, I can afford to have fun and not worry about how much people watch. It was exciting, but it wasn't addictive. I could play a healthy amount and set boundaries.
If you are struggling with something like relationships in your life, this is where the challenge is. To set the intention to say, look, I want a relationship that's fun, but that's not toxic, that's not addictive. I have a very healthy, happy, fun relationship with my wife, and when it's boring, that's a sign for each of us to add a little variety. Go somewhere new together. Do something new. The answer to being bored is to do something new. If you want a positive experience, if you want to level up out of being bored, do something new.
Try new things, even when you don't want to
That's why on my gaming channel, I've been playing some new video games. I tried Life is Strange. I tried Helldivers 2. I tried Kerbal Space Program. And none of those were very fun for me. But that's okay. Because ironically, when you're bored, you often then don't want to try anything new, which is the exact solution. I look back at the times I was bored in life, and often I did end up trying new things. It was new ways to drink, new ways to have problems and drama, a new addictive, crazy relationship. And then I wasn't bored anymore, but then I didn't want the excitement I had.
It's funny in life when we go back and forth between, God, I'm so bored, and the chaos we invite in to escape it. When you don't set a clear intention with being bored, the universe gets a blank check. You've given it a hall pass to say, look, universe, I'm bored, mix it up, give me some excitement. And if you don't specify, the universe is like, okay, you said you wanted excitement, the easiest excitement we can give you is here's an addictive relationship, or here's a new addiction, or here's the same addiction you had before that you felt you conquered. Go back to it. There you go, you wanted to be bored, this is the easiest thing we can give you.
Sometimes, when you want to really level up, like I want to find another video game that's fun but not addictive, that may take some more effort. I may have to try a few games that are not fun before I find the one that is fun. I might play games for 10 or 20 hours that are not fun, and then I find the one that I play for 20, 30, 50 hours that makes it all worth it. That opens me up to suggestions as well. With my creativity online, I've been as bored as I've been as a YouTuber and a Twitch streamer for a long time. You can see more of how I think through all of this in my Games playlist.
You can always expand your mind
Someone in my chat mentioned Sam Bankman-Fried must be bored now. He might be bored. His life was filled with excitement for a while, but jail is probably pretty boring. And even if you are confined in a situation where physically you can't do much, you can always expand your mind. This is where you can set an intention to say, dear universe, I'd like to expand my mind with a new book. Then you can specify. Think about what books you liked before. I'd like some more books like that book, or I'd like a book similar to these three that puts the best of them together.
Once you start to realize that when you put clearly in your mind exactly what you want to find, and you say no to anything that isn't it, then you can always expand your mind. When you're willing to try new things, clarity comes. For example, I'm learning as I try new games, and I'm kind of surprised. I don't even know what kind of games I like anymore. I played Helldivers 2, and I thought that'd be the kind of game I like, but it was boring. I thought Life is Strange would be the kind of game I'd like, but it was boring. Kerbal Space Program was more fun than I expected, but still not fun enough where I want to really go deep down the rabbit hole.
Each time you try something new and it's not what you want, that gives you clarity and makes it easier. If you want something new to stimulate you, a new book can often do the trick. When you describe the kind of book you want, and you listen to it or read it, and then it's not very good, you can get more clear. Okay, well, that book was boring because of this, this, or that. Give me a science fiction book, but I want one that's set in a faraway galaxy, and I want one that's not just the usual hero's journey. From there, your mind might realize, hey, I should just search for this in ChatGPT, because that's an easy way to find something new, or search on Amazon or Audible. The same thing goes with relationships and video games. Each game that is boring gives me more clarity about what's not boring and where I should look.
This process can look a little intimidating, because there have been days recently where I was thinking I should just play Marvel Snap again. I know that'll be fun. But really, I quit Marvel Snap twice already. Is the third time the charm, or can we just skip quitting the third time and go straight to what I really want? What I really want is a game that's fun but not addictive, a game that leaves me feeling good, not a game that leaves me feeling drained and useless.
Boredom is a big sign of success
The more you get bored, the more it's a sign that you can consciously bring in what you want. Being bored is a big sign of success, because it also indicates: look at all that stuff you struggled with before, it's gone, or you wouldn't be bored. So you can actually pat yourself on the back and say, good job. You conquered finances, which at one point was not boring but was stressful and exciting. You conquered romances, which at one point were exciting and stressful, depressing and scary.
I've conquered my health. The one thing I'm working on is helping my eyesight go back to 20/20 from like 20/40 or 20/60, which is interesting, and I've been putting energy into learning about that. Other than that, and losing a tiny bit of weight, these are not things that are hugely exciting. They were, but now they're just easier things I'm working on. With playing music, I've been wondering where the place is where my music is fun, because my music has been challenging in a lot of places, and I've been struggling to have fun with it.
Where you get out of being bored is realizing that trying to put all this stuff together is a process, and it is fun in and of itself. It's fun to try to put your entire life together in a way that's fun, but not addictive or horrible or scary or anxious or full of fear and depression. It's a fun challenge to try to build a life that is useful to other people, where you're helping others and making a difference. It's fun to try to play the game of life every day. That's the basic game we're playing. (This is also exactly why I think being bored in crypto is a sign of success — the same principle, applied to money.)
The video I needed to make for myself
I saw this title when I was researching YouTube, and at the time I thought, I'm not bored, and I'm not sure how being bored is a way you can even level up. But I'm amazed, because I saw this title there and recently realized, wow, this is just the video I needed to make for myself. It's a reminder: don't go back to an addiction, even if it's a minor one like Marvel Snap. A minor addiction, not very consequential, although consequential in its own way. I miss an hour or an hour and a half with my family, or I don't research and learn other topics because I'm grinding out Marvel Snap decks and videos again. Small consequences. But small consequences add up to big consequences.
As innocent of an addiction as Marvel Snap was, addressing it is a good thing to do. Because if you don't do something about it, if I just leave it and keep being in it, maybe the rest of my business ends up going downhill. Maybe my relationship goes downhill. Maybe I stop going to AA meetings to make more time to play Marvel Snap, and then maybe I drink, and things really get bad. What you can see in life is that it's these little decisions, each little decision you make, that really snowballs into the bigger things. And being bored is often the time when these little decisions are made, one way or another.
I'd rather be bored than stressed. But then, there is some positive stress, and I want to choose my stress. I want to consciously decide. If I'm going to be stressed out, I'd like to be stressed out in the context of playing a video game, or making music, or learning, or trying something new. I'd like to make myself uncomfortable or stressed in a way that's supportive to growth. I don't want to stress myself out in regards to my health, or in my relationship with my wife and kids, or in any other way besides the ones I say are okay.
I'm so surprised I even had this one in me to make, and it turned out to be fun. It was interesting to put together, and I hope it's interesting and useful for you too. If you've been bored lately, I'd encourage you to take it as a sign of how far you've come, and then get deliberate about where your next excitement comes from. If you'd like to go deeper on living this way, you're welcome to join the Jerry Banfield Family and bring your own questions.