Being alone is something that most of us want to avoid. Humans are a social being . We love to connect. We want to belong. We love when there’s a room for what we’re doing, people appreciating our work. It feels like we’re finally doing something great. We never want to feel like sad and lonely
From the very ancient age humans have fallen in love with the beauty of community. But, what if there is a situation when you’re completely left alone?
It must be a nightmare to feel lonely and lost!
I had a fear of being alone
Gloria Gaynor
None of ever wants to imagine something like where we are left sad and lonely. Suffering from extreme loneliness and depression… Well, that thing is probably never going to happen. Because, no matter what you do and where you go, there will always be a group of people thinking in the same way as you think.
But, the fact is, they’re not going to be with you all the time. Some routs you’ll really have to take alone. There might be no one to stand for you for a bit of time. In some cases, you’ll have to be embracing that feeing of solitude nd loneliness. However, accepting the solitude and knowing to use it in a right could make you a bit of wiser.
Or, what if you could fall in love with that? I know loneliness is terrifying. But Solitude IS NOT
In this article, we’ve discussed some common myths around loneliness and staying alone and how staying alone can change your life. At the same time, some common dangers of solitude and finally some ways to cure your loneliness and to make you say “I love being alone”
So, don’t skip or just skim. Stick to the end.
Some Common Myths Around Loneliness
1. ‘People Who Stay Alone Are Anti-Social’
Ah.. That introversion pain.
Guess, who said that first? Well, not one but many who talked and still talk about it confidently. It’s kind of scary and funny at the same time when they call you an anti-social just because you don’t have the fear of being alone like them.
Even introverted people can truly feel the pain. The fact is we enjoy our own company and like to spend much time in discovering ourselves more than anyone. But, it doesn’t really mean that we are anti-social or real life bullies.
Loving To Stay Alone is The Sign That Someone Is Getting Anti-Social
– tHOSE SO CALLED WISE PEOPLE
Those people who think that being with others for 24/7 or for most of the day is the only way to learn to socialize properly – please grow up now!
2. ‘People who love to stay alone can never become successful’
Umm…. Let me guess how people can relate staying alone to not being successful so successfully. Well. most probably because of the amount of time you take to co-operate with yourself rather than doing it in an unnecessary way with other people.
I don’t really mean that co-operating with everyone is a stupid thing or everyone says that. But, most people would simply assume that they’re not smart enough, so they separate themselves.
I know it might seem a bit of unreal at first. But look around and surely you’ll find them. Unless you’re having a very positive community, most possibly, with a bit of attention, you’ll find them. Even those who think that people who love staying alone or quiet cannot become successful,
well, some of the biggest billionaires and most successful people like Elon Musk or Bill Gates have confessed themselves that they loved staying alone which provoked them to be creative with their life.
All great and precious things are lonely
—John Steinbeck
3. ‘Lonely People Are Never Happy, They Just Fake It’
Some people are just too amazing that they can even make predictions about someone based on what they love to do.
You see, basically those who ever stayed alone are the one seeing the beauty of it. But, it’s not for all. Some people will have sympathetic look towards you when they will see you standing alone and still smiling.
They will feel pity as they feel for some of those movie characters standing alone and fighting for themselves. Even though, it’s true that working in group can make amazing things happen. But standing alone not necessarily makes you weak and even there’s nothing to fake about it. At least, when you prefer to stay alone, you’re not always lonely.
4. Loneliness Is The Most Unwanted Thing
Well, there are some people who would literally beg rather than staying alone. None of us ever wants to fall apart. But, at least loneliness is necessary sometimes.
Because, if you’ll never feel lonely, you’ll never understand what it’s like to be together with others. Staying alone gives you the time to reflect on yourself.
So, from the next time when someone says , “loneliness will kill you” or “Loneliness is the most unwanted thing ever”, don’t be afraid. Only those people die out of it, who can never embrace it really.
The Untold Advantages of Solitude
1. It’s Peaceful
Imagine having a tons of meeting and calls throughout the day and finally getting to a state where you’ve no disturbance.
No phone calls, no meeting, no one around you to start a conversation with you, No one to bother you, No comments, No noise nothing…
It’s just you and yourself. Sitting peacefully taking a break from all the chaos of the world. It might feel like the world has stopped for a moment. But, see, this magical peaceful feeling is actually the thing that you can see when you’ve finally started to enjoy staying alone.
2. It’s Connective
Solitude helps you to connect with God, with the Universe, with the Root of yourself. Even if you’re not a fan of God, spiritualism or those kind of stuffs, it helps you to connect with yourself.
It helps you to connect with the person within you. When there’s is all the people around you, it’s hard to take a minute and think about yourself. But, the fact is keeping the self connection is as important as keeping the connection with others.
If you won’t keep connections with others, you’ll lose them. And if you won’t keep connection with yourself, you’ll lose yourself.
3. It’s Self Reflective
Solitude lets you to reflect on yourself. When you’re constantly getting bothered by other’s people’s wishes or comments or demands, it’s hard to remember what your true desires are.
Who am I really? What’s my purpose? Am I doing the right thing? Am I happy with the life I have? Am I truly getting to fulfill my real desires?
You can only ask yourself these question when you’re rested which actually comes out of solitude.
4. Solitude let’s you to be Creative
You become productive when you’re busy and you become creative when you’re alone. And that’s how many famous creators, inventors and book writers explain the beauty of solitude.
Even thinking it logically, when people around you are sharing their ideas and thoughts with you, and your brain is constantly being provoked to think about them, then how can it actually store new ideas? It must be impossible, isn’t it?
“Creativity is about connection – you must be connected to others in order to be inspired and share your own work- but it’s also about disconnection”
– from the book “Keep Going” by Austin Kleon (page 29)
5. Sometimes Solitude is MORE Productive than you think
Last time, when I was alone, I found myself cleaning my home and washing dishes by myself which I would probably never do if I wasn’t alone.
You see, solitude doesn’t only clear up storage in your mind letting you to think more and deeply, but it also makes you realize that you’re the one taking the responsibility of your life. There’s no one to do it for you. You may always ask for help though, but literally you can never rely on someone to do it for you.
6. It’s Healing
Talking with encouraging people is definitely healing. And so as it is to talk with yourself.
You see, we all go through traumas, bad times, and embarrassments time to time in our life. It takes time to heal from them. Sometimes, when we’re really hurt, we try to keep ourselves busy with the outer world talking with other people, escaping the real situation. It looks like we’re happy for a bit of time.. But are we really?
Well, at the end of the day, when you’ll be alone suffering from those wounds, you’ll realize you never healed. Because, ignoring wounds never cures it.
You’ve to accept the pain, bandage the wound and take care of it and slowly have to wait for it to recover. That’s how you heal. And the bandage you give to yourself is when you talk with yourself and make yourself understand that it’s okay.
Some possible Dangers of Solitude
1. It’s Addictive
As soon as you’ll realize that how much wonderful solitude can be, soon you’ll start getting addicted.
Possibly in an unhealthy way just like the word ‘addiction’ means which is truly never suggested. But, I can guarantee, once a while, it’ll surely happen.
Loneliness is dangerous. It’s addicting. Once you see how peaceful it is, you don’t wanna deal with people
– Hedonist Poet
2. You’ll lose connections with some
When you’ll embrace solitude and will start reflecting on to it’s benefits like connecting with yourself or being self reflective and more productive, soon you’ll be able to differentiate the toxic people around you and will lose connections with them as well.
Also those unnecessary frequent small talks and hangouts may not mean as much to you as much it did once. So, you’ll also lose some connections there as well.
3. It’ll make you look dull to some (overly smart) people
Remember? when in the beginning, we talked about some myths and in one of them, we talked about people who are overly wise who calls you an anti-social and makes predictions about you based on what you love? – It’s them!!!
As you’ll start spending more times with yourself, some people will just assume that you’re getting dumb and hiding yourself. Will come to you and advice you to get out of that dullness they see within you.
They will observe, they will complain, they’ll make predictions, they will advice… Is it your life or theirs??
4. It’ll make you look selfish to some
Thinking about yourself and focusing on your life is a time consuming process. But all you know is that you’re doing it all for yourself.
In this process, you might have to start caring less about everyone else except some important people like your family members, which might make you look selfish to them.
But, you know, there’s no compromising when it comes to improving yourself.
5. You’ll make people jealous
When you’ll accept and embrace solitude, most possibly your whole mindset will shift and your life will change.
You may easily find yourself getting wiser and having the ability to observe much more deeper than you ever had which will surely end up making a lot of people jealous.
Some tips to Start Enjoying Staying Alone
1. BEAT loneliness and start ENJOYING solitude
To beat loneliness firstly you need to teach yourself how to actually enjoy it. And the game will change.
For this you can also check out my 10 tips to beat loneliness and start enjoying it
2. Accept the fact ‘Solitude can change your life’
Everything starts with that simple mindset that’s willing to change. No matter how many books or guides or articles online you read to beat loneliness, nothing will change if you’re not going to have that mindset shift at first.
Because all the way, you had been trying to beat it. But as soon as you’ll realize that you’ve to actually love it, everything will start to change.
Solitude has it’s own very strange beauty of it
Harmann Hesse
3. Don’t care about what others think of you
In this article, all the way, I’ve already talked about the thoughts that people can have about you once you embrace staying alone.
Those undermining thoughts and opinions can be really affecting to your process. So, just stop caring about them.
Don’t give an ear to them unless there’s actually any advice you think is worth picking up.
4. Be open about it to others
When people ask you ‘why you love staying alone?’, going clueless will never solve the problem. Or at least, starting to ignoring people without any reminder just because of getting to that state of solitude will increase the problem even more.
So, don’t be nervous in these situations. Talking about why you actually love staying alone with some extroverted people might be tough. I understand.
But at least, people change. Who knows, the mockery you’re afraid of listening after talking about it may end up being an applause for you. So, be confident about your reasons. Make it formative but no need to become a perfect debater.
Also when people ask why you don’t hangout with them like before, be patient and say that you need space. Your that simple answers can solve everything.
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My final thoughts : First of all, the purpose of this article is never to encourage someone to have permanent solitude.
It’s impossible.
We feel empowered and alive when there’s someone around us. However, in some stages of your life, you’ll have to face solitude. This article encourages to accept it. You see, so many people feel delusional when left alone.
But, if there’s one thing you can learn from this article is,
Solitude ISN’T always brutal. Sometimes, it’s just a Bless.
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That’s all for today’s article. Don’t forget to leave a comment about your thoughts regarding this post.
Question for you: Is there anything new that you would like to share regarding this topic ? If yes, then what are they?
Let me know the answer in the comment below!
Finally, if you liked this article, then don’t forget to share it with others who can find it useful or interesting too. Your one share will make my day!
Great post!
What a beautifully written article. As a psychotherapist, I encourage my clients to focus on solitude as it helps to get to know themselves better. I wrote about this in my article https://pantearahimian.com/15-easy-ways-to-make-great-mental-health-your-reality/
Feeling lonely and being alone I feel like it’s different things. You can’t be successful alone but we need to control being left alone not to feel lonely haha. I hope that makes sense but nevertheless, this was a great read. Thank you so much!
I love this so much! Too many of us think we have to be with someone all the time. Of course, human interaction is healthy, but so is alone time.
This is such an important post. There’s nothing wrong with enjoying alone time. I’m a big fan of being alone sometimes.
As an only child, I really like having time to myself. I feel like it really leads to self discovery. Plus, it’s fun to do what you want without pressure from others.
I love your blog post. I love being alone and genuinely enjoy it. But after the coronavirus, my husband works at home, plus we have two young kids. I hope in 2 years it will change!
I prefer being around people to solitude, but I agree that there are many myths surrounding the idea of being by yourself. The one I hear most is, like you mention, that people who are alone are not happy, Quite to the contrary, people often love their time alone and it is something we can all benefit from.
I like alone time. I remember in my late 20s I could t stand to be home alone. I wanted to go out and even talk to neighbors lol These says I LIKE staying in
Wow! I’ve never really thought much about the whole being alone thing but this post is so informative and well written! I really enjoyed it! Thank you!
Such a great article! You’ve helped my understand the difference between loneliness and solitude and for that I’m grateful! Excited to start the work towards solitude.
I love this post! This is something everyone should read <3
This is such a lovely post. I find solitude to be wonderful and refreshing.
Traveling alone is something I have to conquer yet but I have lived alone and it was rewarding! There is peace in it, I agree.
I love this so much! I actually LOVE to be alone it is so peaceful and nurturing. It’s a rare event as a mum let me tell you. But I love it when I get the chance. I think you have covered all the benefits of being alone so beautifully.
This post is so eye opening; because for one I’ve always been a bit of a loner, an ‘introvert’ I believe is the word. I’m also living solo in my very own house. This post have definitely brought some reassurance that there truly is beauty in being by yourself and no own is around, so thank you!
When I was divorced from my first husband, I lived alone for the first time of my life. I learned a lot and got to where I really enjoyed the single life.
Great information!! There are so many times that I just need to be on my own. I work from home, so I usually don’t have a problem with that, but getting out in nature by yourself can have healing properties, in my opinion!
I don’t mind being alone. I find it relaxing. Sometimes we just need time to ourselves!
You have to love yourself before you can love someone else. I found myself and then I found my other half.
Alone time is necessary. Though not too much. We need connection and community!
After raising 5 kids, I like being alone. It was hard when Covid kept them all home.
I’ve been single for over a year now and I am enjoying my freedom. It’s hard to let people in when you have been hurt so many times. Plus, I’ve worked hard to get to where I am and don’t want to start over again if it doesn’t work out.
This is a really great article to read. I’m surely going to share this with others! Love it!
Such an amazing article. I agree with everything. It’s incredible how things change for the better when you focus on yourself.
I actually enjoy some alone time, when I spend so much time with my kids and also kids at work (in a school). It is nice to have some solace.
Love this so much! Such great insight! It is important to have contentment in alone time.
I’m a big homebody. I enjoy alone time. I would be sad if it was always alone time though!
i’ve always believed that if you can learn to love being on your own and being your own best company you are truly loving yourself. i see being alone as a wonderful way to examine your relationship with the most important person- yourself!
I never thought of this in that way before. In this way to reflect on your relationship with people in your circle.
I’ve found that people that learn to enjoy their own company are less prone to boredom too!
Hehe…it’s good you have spoken of the dangers solitude carries! Many people struggle with leaving it for a day or two, to live with other people.
You truly give me a different view from what I always think. I have never thought of being alone in any situations, except when I play my fav video games.