Escaping Boredom Pulls You Away from Your Spiritual Path
Desiring continual entertainment weakens the mind and spirit.
How long can you sit in silence? Perhaps that should be the next viral TikTok challenge. Simply sitting for a few moments without a smartphone or any means of entertainment can pose a challenge for most of us in our distracted society. There’s always a market for ways to alleviate our boredom.
You don’t even have to be sitting to experience inner silence. I was training for the Chicago Marathon in 1999 (back when it was only $35 to enter) when my friend Perry asked me about my last long run of 16 miles.
“What do you think about for that long? I’d run out of thoughts,” he said.
When you’re running alone without any music or entertainment, your mind unleashes its chatter. All those thoughts you put off when you were concentrating on your work or other important tasks come back to demand being heard.
Running Out of Thoughts
It can be overwhelming at first. These days you can just find a different podcast or playlist to get you out of that funk. Yes, sometimes those thoughts can be seriously destructive when you sit with them, but when you’re running, you’d be amazed how they can lose their energy. Really. Not lying here. You run yourself out of thoughts.
When you run yourself out of thoughts, you can experience the moment for what it is. I know, that sounds a bit “woo-woo,” but it’s a state that lets you take a small peek into a deeper spiritual life. Anyone who’s run a marathon or completed an Ironman knows that the ego quits well before the spirit does. Yes, you can experience inner silence if you practice a little patience and persevere.
Channeling Inner Restlessness
Getting there is the hard part, no question about that. So many thoughts rise up from the mud and stir some serious emotions. Some might whip you into action if you let them. That’s why I like to take them on the road with me, on a bike ride, a long car ride, or a long run. You can’t be impulsive because you’re busy doing something else.
It’s that impulsiveness that’s worth checking. When we experience inner restlessness, we have the urge to do something about it. Channeling that restlessness during physical activity can help expel some of that energy that will bubble up.
But sometimes we’re bored, and we itch to alleviate our boredom. We hear those many slogans that permeate modern society that tell us we have to move, action is best, drive drive drive. You must be doing something or you’re not living.
While sometimes that’s true, sometimes a gremlin uses those slogans to yank us off our spiritual path. This gremlin’s name is acedia.
Understanding Acedia
In Praktikos, Evagrius describes acedia as the “noonday demon” from Psalm 91 because it makes the day seem to drag. We look out the window, check our watches, and seek out the company of others to appease our boredom. We hate where we are, so we begin to daydream about another place that appeases our discomfort and boredom. Or we yearn for the past and are tempted to abandon our spiritual path.
Acedia has been translated to be sloth, listlessness, or apathy. But the word in its original Greek means much more than that, or at least that’s what Evagrius believed. While we’re called to be somewhat detached from our emotional states (a sort of “good” apathy), acedia is a demanding gremlin that gets us to do things that aren’t in our best interest.
The Ego and Spiritual Exhaustion
Acedia also strokes the ego so that the ego begins to gain confidence in itself, believing that it must take action when action isn’t appropriate. The ego then consumes our spiritual energy, leaving us spiritually exhausted. You can see echoes of acedia in one of my posts last week.
We then become disillusioned because we’ve strayed so far from our intended path. We might even turn to our old ways—ways that brought us delight in the past—even though that turn in the path is a U-turn. We find ourselves back where we started months, years, or decades ago. Evagrius writes:
The demon of acedia suggests to you ideas of leaving, the need to change your place and your way of life. He depicts this other life as your salvation and persuades you that if you do not leave, you are lost.1
Acedia in Midlife
Acedia also shows up in midlife, when you’ve checked off your societal boxes of marriage, family, and career. Acedia asks, “Is this all there is?” Then you feel compelled to do something crazy like have an affair or buy a ridiculously expensive car.
I’m not saying that change isn’t good. We often get ourselves stuck in complacency and routine and forget what’s at the core of what we’re doing. That’s when we do need to shake things up so we can continue to grow.
Acedia is something different. It’s the desire to quit because the ego isn’t getting anything out of what we’re doing. Acedia desires sensory gratification so we’ll abandon practices and thoughts that are directed toward God. Acedia is about escapism. Acedia seeks to enliven the ego and bury the soul.
Battling Acedia
What do we do when we experience acedia? Evagrius says we model the path of Jesus in the desert when he experienced these temptations. We use Scripture to best acedia rather than try to logically argue with it.
In Talking Back, Evagrius reviews many thoughts acedia might tempt us with and offers passages from the Old and New Testaments. Here’s an example:
Against the thought of acedia that takes away the hope of our endurance on the pretext that one cannot through its duration persuade the Lord to have mercy on us:
‘I waited patiently for the Lord, and he attended to me and listened to my supplication (Psalm 39:2).’2
Self-Reflection Questions to Identify Acedia
Experiencing Boredom
How often do you find yourself unable to sit in silence without feeling restless or bored?
What activities do you typically turn to when you experience boredom or restlessness?
Mind Chatter and Thoughts
When you are alone with your thoughts, do you find them overwhelming or distracting?
How do you usually cope with the flood of thoughts that come when you are not engaged in any activity?
Impulsiveness and Action
Do you feel a constant urge to be doing something, even when it might not be necessary?
How do you respond to this urge? Do you channel it into productive activities or give in to impulsive actions?
Restlessness and Satisfaction
Are there times when you feel dissatisfied with your current life circumstances, despite achieving many of your goals?
Do you daydream about different life scenarios as a way to escape your current situation?
Ego and Spiritual Path
In what ways does your ego influence your decision-making? Do you often feel the need for sensory gratification?
How often do you feel spiritually exhausted or disconnected from your intended path?
Patterns of Behavior
Have you noticed patterns where you revert to old habits or behaviors that you thought you had moved past?
What triggers these regressions, and how do you feel afterward?
Midlife Reflections
If you are in midlife, do you find yourself questioning if this is all there is to life?
Have you felt tempted to make drastic changes, such as purchasing expensive items or considering an affair, to alleviate these feelings?
Spiritual Practices
How consistent are you with your spiritual practices? Do you find yourself abandoning them when they no longer seem to provide immediate benefits?
What steps can you take to remain committed to your spiritual path despite the challenges of acedia?
1 De octo vitiosis cogitationibus
2 Evagrius of Pontus (Cistercian Studies), translated by David Brakke.