2-3-4: Why it hurts to be alone

Published: Thu, 06/09/22

2-3-4 Friday

‘Seeking to spark the most potential within you per word of any online newsletter’

1 thought

We’ve all felt the deep loneliness.

When you leave the Zoom meeting, and realise you’re all alone. When you stand in a crowded room, and feel a chill run down your back. When you return home, close the door, and realise you’re all alone.

Loneliness is never an easy feeling to deal with. If you’re feeling that now, I’m not here to say that I understand how you feel. But I’m here to offer a different, and hopefully helpful, viewpoint.

The upside of loneliness is solitude. The downside? Pain.

Seeing loneliness as solitude means being willing to lean into the loneliness you feel, and recognising that there may be a lesson there. So often, when we feel the slightest bit of loneliness, we desperately connect. We try to message ‘hi, hi, hi’ to 5 different friends, we check our email, we scroll through our social media.

Maybe take some time to sit and be alone.

You may find some comfort in that. We’re so connected now into a hyperactive hive mind that’s constantly bombarding us with more information that we may find it difficult to disconnect.

I’m tired. Are you?

Because every morning, seeing more pings and emails doesn’t fill me with excitement. It fills me with dread. Dread of the duty to reply - to say things nicely, to be funny, to be witty.

Maybe this will help - every time you’re alone - sit with it for a minute. Rather than whipping out your phone to ‘be productive’, observe the world around you. Look at it with new eyes.

And you may discover the world anew.

1 talk

“Solitude allows us to get comfortable being with ourselves, which makes it easier to be ourselves in interactions with others. That authenticity helps build strong connections.”

- Vivek Murthy, in Together: Why Social Connection Holds the Key to Better Health, Higher Performance, and Greater Happiness

1 tip

Oh come on, we don’t have to all start our days with our phones. Why do we need to be connected to the world the moment we wake up?

Let’s try this for the next week.

Put your phone outside your room. When you wake, rather than checking your messages, take some time to just prepare breakfast slowly, to talk to your partner in bed, to observe your children, to trace your finger down your child’s hair, and to enjoy the real life.

Not the virtual life.

John

Live Young, Live Well