Welcome to the happiness podcast. I'm Dr. Robert Puff.

When I was a teenager, I lived in a town of about 10,000 people.

Well, there was a part of the town that had this circular loop where you could drive around

it and keep driving around it. It was about

probably 10 miles long and we as teenagers called it scoop the loop. We'd say are you

going to scoop the loop tonight? It was a popular past time of a lot of teenagers.

Well, one of my classmates who I wasn't very close to said,

hey, I want to show you something.

So I got into his car and he went over to this park in town

and he drove up on the grass and I remember thinking what is he doing it was late at night but still he shouldn't be driving on the grass.

Well then he proceeded to drive as fast as it could in circles and in the process tearing up the grass at the park.

I was rather shocked and I was glad to get back to my car.

Well, a couple days later I saw in the the paper that he been arrested for that very act.

And even though he wasn't my best friend, I didn't know him well.

I went to school with him for many years.

And I remember thinking, why would he do that?

And it really bowled down to boredom in a small Midwestern town.

People got bored sometimes, particularly males, and they would do some very silly things that sometimes got them in trouble.

Because boredom is a powerful motivator to do things to create change because we don't like that boredom.

Unfortunately though, boredom, like in my friend's case, can get us in a lot of trouble.

I think a lot of kids when they're in high school and college

turned to alcohol and substances because they're bored.

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