Stop boring it.
Your
brain doesn't get tired.
It's
active every single moment of every single hour of every single day
of your entire life.
It
starts working, the moment it develops around 8 weeks after
conception and keeps going until after you draw your very last
breath.
You
may go to sleep but your brain doesn't. It's just as active at night
as during the day.
So
any drop in efficiency that you experience is down to the quality of
the work you give it.
If
you feel that your productivity is dropping, change subject. Move to
something new and continue.
Brain Training
"Is
there such a thing as a boring job?"
I
was given great advice very early on in my career. It went
"Do
what you love or love what you do"
The
principle was that if you couldn't do what you loved, find something
in the thing you have to do that you can love. They went on to tell
me that every job has bits in it that you won't like so you had
better find ways of liking them because they were unavoidable. I have
to admit that I found that to be very good advice.
Since
then, I have noticed two things:
1.
There are people everywhere who enjoy doing that thing you hate
2.
That many people doing "dream jobs" - like zipping around
the world around the world to exotic locations and photographing
beautiful women all at someone else's expense - are quick to moan
about how the job isn't all glamour like having to check in and out
of hotels and live from a suitcase - you know, the kind of stuff
everyone does on holiday and doesn't moan about
So,
are there boring jobs or just bored people?
When
I asked how I could get to love something I didn't, they told me to
find someone who did love it and ask them why they loved it. Again
good advice. But there is a better piece of advice I was given. It
was
"Never
shortchange yourself by doing less than your best. If you don't do
your best, the only person you really cheat is yourself"
Again
good advice. So, if you're doing your very best, can you really find
any job boring?
OK.
There may be times when your boss absolutely refuses to let you
change a job to make it better or goes out of their way to make the
job terrible. But is that the job's fault or the boss' fault?
The
second point you made was even more important. It is "Who is in
control - you or your dopamine levels?"
Now
I would argue that you're in control for two reasons:
1.
The dopamine hit isn't in social media, it's in us. I hate social
media. I mean I really hate social media - but I do it because that
is the way the world operates in the 21st century. So whether I like
it or not, I have to do it. There is no dopamine hit for me when I do
social media. I would much rather read a book
2.
We are just like Pavlov's Dogs. Pavlov's Dog's did not salivate at
the sound of a bell. They salivated at the sound of a bell only once
that bell had been associated with them getting fed. In short, it was
not the bell, it was their anticipation having heard the bell. If
Pavolov had associated the bell with feeding and then stopped feeding
them after the bell, the dogs would just as quickly have associated
the bell with not being fed and stopped salivating. So we get the
dopamine hit from social media or gaming or something else solely
because it is associated with pleasure. If we stopped associating it
with pleasure, the dopamine would stop flowing.
So
why do people get a dopamine hit from social media - and a big one at
that? Well I reckon it's for the same reason I don't. It's not social
media, it's validation that gets the hit. Perhaps for the first time
in their lives, they feel that someone cares about what they are
doing and what they feel. Suddenly, their existence gets validated
and they become validation junkies so that every new like / follower
/ positive comment is a wonderful experience and every new dislike /
hater / complaint is a new low.
Now
I am the reverse. I do not need my existence validated by others to
make me feel like I deserve to live. My entire self-worth is based on
how much I can express my humanity and I don't care if no one else
notices or complains.
I
have 600 connections but as far as I'm concerned that doesn't make me
10 times more valuable than someone with 60 nor does it make me 10
times less valuable than someone with 6,000 connections. But for
some, this is life and death. I was told by someone that he to post
on Instagram daily or he would lose followers. I hear people
discussing their likes as if they were cholesterol levels
And
the two points are related. Because I'm bored and unvalued at work
and feel out of control of my life, I seek validation in social media
or games or something else so giving what control I have over to
complete strangers who, at a whim, can make my life better or worse.
So it is absolutely essential that we tell people that their lives
matter and every part of their lives matter - and they matter for no
other reason that they are human beings and they are alive.
Credit: The header image
is available as wallpaper from wall.alphacoders.com
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