This article extends the study of a phenomenological investigation in which six participants wrote protocols and gave interviews describing the experience of being bored with their lives. This study found that the participants gradually became bored after they had compromised their life-projects for less desired projects. The participants felt emotionally ambivalent because they were thematically angry with others involved in their compromises while being pre-reflectively angry with themselves. The participants non-thematically adopted passive and avoidant stances toward their lives that allowed (...) their boredom to spread to more aspects of their lives. The participants' boredom led them to identity issues because they no longer were actively working toward projects. They felt empty and apathetic because they felt every action led to boredom, and thus action was futile. Preliminary distinctions between the experience of life boredom and depression are considered. (shrink)

There has been a great deal of attention given to the "free will versus determinism" debate. However, little attention has been paid to the most common expressions from this controversy--people's everyday experience of fate and destiny. In fact, fate and destiny are terms that are often used as synonyms as if there were no differences between the two words. This paper distinguishes the two concepts by reviewing some historical distinctions made by a variety of philosophers, psychologists and scientists. The paper (...) also discusses some of our contemporary understandings of destiny and concludes that an individual's stance toward fate and destiny significantly affects one's sense of life-authorship and vitality. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)