A man nervously sat in the chair in his doctor’s office. His bouncing feet indicated a certain anxiety concerning his fate. For months the man had been fatigued almost to the point of depression. At last his doctor looked up at him in a sympathetic gesture. The doctor looked him in the eye and rendered the verdict: "Boredom!"

"Boredom!" retorted the man. "How do I deal with that? I came here expecting you to get at the roots of my depression and give me some medication."

"I could give you antidepressants for a while," the doctor responded, "but don’t you think it might be more constructive to change your life?"

The story of this man may well be the story of many people. The man gets up at the same hour every weekday morning, drives to work via the same route, and performs the same task in the…