How to End a “Boring” Life

"If you’re bored with life – you don’t get up every morning with a burning desire to do things – you don’t have enough goals." –Lou Holtz

I recently went traveling and upon my travels I had an epiphany of many sorts. However, it was so many that I don’t want to dedicate this blog to listing every single revelation that hit me. Overall, what I realized is: goals are important to life! This particular quote supports that very idea.

We are always changing our interests and it’s our interests which continues to define who we are. To be stuck in a stagnant rut is literally what can be the death of anyone. For example, as an educator, I could continue using the same curriculum over and over and over. That wouldn’t really change much to me and my profession, however I would get to a point where I feel stagnant because all I am doing it basically the same thing over and over again. The monotony alone is a death sentence waiting to happen to me. I need variety and change just to keep it interesting and exciting. In other words, I need goals to make me feel like living.

It’s the same ideology with interests and hobbies. For instances, a Dungeons and Dragon (DnD) player may want to complete a certain amount of quests, or finish a certain amount of stories, or even, take the helm of a Dungeon Master and run their own creative campaign. Regardless, without a goal, any DnD player would lose interest and eventually change their hobby.

In the world of sports, every athlete is trying to reach a sort of skill level related to a goal. Again, it’s what keeps the activity interesting. 11 time world surfing champion Kelly Slater had many moments when he was going to retire from the WSL (World Surf League), but it was always a goal that drove him back into the sport (i.e. beating John John Florence at Pipeline).

During my trip and time thereafter is when I began to realize the importance of having a goal. Having a self-constructed goal in which you can work towards to attain, is important to fulfilling your life and making you feel alive! Here’s the good news: it ok if you change you passions because you can still apply having a self-constructed goal to any passion.

I started aggressive inline skating (and well, just skating in general), but through the course of learning, I have changed my goals constantly to keep my interest and passion fresh. What began as just learning to perform a 180 jump spin quickly turned to grinding on ledges and performing a 180 stall on the coping of a wall (for those who don’t know what that is: you skate up a wall towards the metal bar at the end of the wall called a coping. Once you’re about to hit the coping with your wheels, you jump and do a 180-degree spin, and land your skates right on the coping to stop, or stall, yourself for a brief moment before rolling back down the wall). I am still adding on to my goals as I master a skill. I push myself to the next attainable goal.

One of my life goals is to become a well-known writer. It’s no secret I love writing. For me, it’s a passion. I enjoy writing fiction or non-fiction. Just being able to express my feelings and thoughts through the written language brings so much joy to my heart. This is also why I have decided to add to my writing goal: I am pushing myself to enter in writing contests and competitions. Of course, winning one would be exciting, but it’s also for the experience and the recognition. It’s going to take time because I need to work on honing my craft. I know this. But it’s better than being stagnant. Especially as I start gaining more and more years in age.

So, like the quote says, if you examine your own life and think: “it’s so boring!” Then it’s true, you don’t have enough goals, or you have goals that don’t excite you. You need to adjust your goals so you can feel excited and much more alive. No matter what it is.

Good luck in finding and accomplishing your own goals! Thanks for reading.