With our digital devices ever present, boredom has become somewhat of a lost art. In this video I reintroduce the wonders of boredom and how you can use your own mind to improve your life, rather than having to rely on digital crutches to get you through the day. This is not the only video on YouTube with this message, and I hope it won’t be the last. I’m happy to add to a growing chorus of voices calling out this epidemic of unhealthy device usage that has all kinds of knock-on effects on our physical and mental wellbeing. *Links* - You can find Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport book on Amazon.com (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525536515/) or any other place that sells books (no affiliate marketing, just a helpful link). A quick summary of the main ideas by Cal himself can also be found on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=DsGKzjyj_6Q. - This video provides a good tutorial on how to set up the digital wellbeing features natively installed on Android and Apple phones: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Fg-3-M0CY. For Android users, I can also recommend the minimalist phone Android app: https://www.minimalistphone.com/ (again, no affiliate marketing, just a helpful link). - The poem in the middle section is a 1921 English-language translation of The Solitude of Night by Li Bai: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/52535/the-solitude-of-night. Other renditions can be found here https://youtu.be/tpx7q9YgAjQ?si=am99kuuRGEvLYIwX&t=209 and here https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Readings/yuexiaduzhuo.html. Li Bai is one of China’s most celebrated poets, and lived in 8th century CE T’ang dynasty China. - I recently listened to an episode of Lenny’s Podcast with Nir Eyal. Nir extensively researched and wrote about the tricks we play on our own mind in his latest book, Indistractable. The podcast can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSscIIY609c.