Posted on 17 Jul, 2008 -
What are you going to do with your life?
Life lacking in meaning, creativity, direction or just activity?
5 ideas to help you find fun, direction or meaning - or just simply fill the hours
Including how to get started in creative writing, how to find a volunteer job and how to enjoy free online career and academic education
Bored? Stuck at home? Or just frustrated and need something new in your life?
It’s funny how we can spend years of our life moaning about not having enough time - but yet be lost as to what best to do with it when we finally get it. This week I’ve put together for you a list of 5 things you can do to get a new angle on your life, find something fulfilling, or just have a bit of fun!
1. Visit the website http://www.bored.com. It’s full of lots of free games, creative activities and a free IQ test
This one, I’m afraid, probably won’t expand your life or educate your mind. It’s all rather meaningless fun - but then there’s nothing wrong with that once in a while. Being constructive and productive are all well and good but sometimes it’s nice just to fritter away a few hours! In fact, wasting our precious resources occasionally is a good way of ensuring that we appreciate the value of them.
Have a play for me at http://www.bored.com
2. Express your creativity with creative writing
I was talking to my grandmother last night who was telling me all about the lovely poems she still has that her father had written - both for his own expression of the beauty of life and for family events and as presents for others. He even wrote a poem to commemorate the day that she had her plaits cut off and was given a young ladies hair cut!
Before we became so obsessed with the need for fame and fortune, people used to write and draw and paint for its own enjoyment - rather than in the hope of becoming the next JK Rowling. Writing can offer us all a deeper connection to and involvement with life, activating the power of your imagination to energise your life. It is a wonderful form of self expression and can also be very therapeutic.
Nothing that you write need, of course, be seen by others or published. So just enjoy yourself with these few exercises and see what you come up with! Don’t think that it necessarily needs to be in the form of a poem or a story but better rather just to aim to write SOMETHING. All of these little creative exercises can be done in as little as ten minutes.
a) Take a blank piece of paper and write a word that feels strong to you in the middle with a circle around it. Next, draw arrows coming out of it and put any words on the end that come into your head. You then may find other words coming out of these words, or being added to the original words. Keep going, just writing down anything that comes into your mind. When you feel that you have plenty of ideas to work with, start writing up your thoughts in sentences. Don’t think about what you’re writing or try to make it good. Just write down whatever comes into your head.
b) Write about the life of a single object or thing: a hand, a nose, a plate, a hat, a flower, or a paraffin heater, for example. Unlike in the above exercises, you may want to spend a few days mulling this over in your head before you start.
c) Write down five words that signify strong memories from your childhood. Now start a piece of writing about when you were young, exploring these five ideas or images as you write.
3. Get involved, get busy, get meaning and make a difference: Discover the life-changing joy of volunteering
The http://www.do-it.org.uk is a brilliant website that can help you find great opportunities for helping out in your community. Simply visit the website, tap in your postcode and they’ll come up with dozens of open situations for you. There are so many surprising ways you can help out and I was amazed at how much fun and enjoyment and engagement some of the jobs offered - including jobs for those who are stuck at home or disabled. I was particularly drawn myself to the idea of helping out with an art therapy group, driving a minibus and even (I surprised myself with this one) volunteering at the local police station!
4. Educate yourself with free online learning
There are many reasons for wanting to study - to further your career or start a new one… for your own personal enjoyment.... and to expand your mind and understanding of the world to name but a few.
The Open University, for example, offers some great free resources for people at their website http://www.open.ac.uk/openlearn including some fascinating study modules you can follow on subjects including Citizenship (How do you create citizenship? How do you feel you belong?), The meaning of home (The way people identify and become attached to places, buildings and objects, impacting on personal well-being) and Creating an ethical organisation (This unit explores the business case for an ethical approach to human resources management.)
If you’re more interested in developing skills to help you find new or better work then the government website http://www.vision2learn.net offers free courses (for British citizens) that lead to an NVQ qualification in work skills, life skills, job skills and sports skills.
And finally, for general learning the website http://www.free-ed.net. offers loads of great free courses on hundreds of subjects from Anatomy and Art History through to Web page authoring and welding! For vocational, personal or academic study.
5. Start a new hobby
Hobbies are so important to our wellbeing, apparently, that they can completely change how we feel about life if we find one that we love. According to an article in the New York Times “Hobbies can enhance your creativity, help you think more clearly and sharpen your focus, said Carol Kauffman, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School. “When you’re really engaged in a hobby you love, you lose your sense of time and enter what’s called a flow state, and that restores your mind and energy,” she said.”
“Hobbies also enhance self-esteem and self-confidence. Feeling that you are solely defined by your job - even if it is going well - can raise your chances of experiencing anxiety, depression and burnout, because you don’t have a perception of yourself outside of work, said Michelle P. Maidenberg, a psychotherapist and business coach in New York, and clinical director of Westchester Group Works, a center for group therapy.”
The two links below will lead you to two great lists of hobby ideas to inspire you to find something you’d love to get involved with.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies
And what would I do? Apart from volunteering at the police station (still a bit worried about that one!), I do have a dream of doing some kind of collecting that involved wooden boxes with dozens of small compartments. I also like the idea of growing roses. Although, unlike my grandmother who used to do so where I grew up as a child, I wouldn’t display them in a cement garden.
