How to let things happen?

The following is an excerpt from a samvaad (dialogue) session with Acharya Prashant.

Question: Acharya Ji, how to get rid of boredom?

Acharya Prashant (AP): Boredom comes only when you have an idea of what would not bore you. I feel that the only exciting things in life are ‘achievement’, ‘video games’, ‘sex’, and situations have brought me where I neither have achievement, nor video games, nor sex. Now, what would I feel?

Listener (L): Bored.

AP:

You feel bored only because you have an image of what would not bore you.

You decide in advance that if you can have exciting food,

then it will not bore you.

Now you cannot always have exciting food.

The result is boredom.

Before you say that you are bored,

find out whether you have ideas about what does not bore you.

Anybody here who will keep silent when asked what is it that he finds exciting?

And if you can list what you can find exciting, why don’t you see that you have already listed what you find boring? Everything that you do not find exciting is something you will find boring. But you will never ask, “Sir, why am I excited?” Rather, you will always ask, “Why am I bored?”

You are bored because you are excited.

If you are excited, then your excitement is going to vanish at some moment.

And then, what will you be left with?

L: Boredom.

Question: Acharya Ji, then how to not be excited?

AP: By seeing that the excitement is not just excitement. It is excitement plus boredom.

L: There is another side to it too.

AP: Yes, boredom is not just ‘boredom’, boredom is preparation for excitement. When you get bored, obviously you jump into excitement. Now, as long as you feel like playing this game, go ahead, play this game.

But if you are even semi-intelligent, there comes a point when you want to drop out, when you say, “I cannot allow these two to affect me. Maybe I can just let them continue in their way…