1. The New Normal:
There is a huge difference between being alone and feeling lonely. You can be alone like me but still not feel lonely whereas you can be with a bunch of friends yet feel lonely.
The problem is never how others make you feel around them. It is how you treat yourself that will decide whether you feel lonely or happy.
In my hometown, I don’t have any friends who I can just hang out with. And there are times when I want to go out for a coffee, shopping or for a movie date or just roam around the city. But do you think anything could have happened if I kept waiting for someone to come and make you feel loved and happy? No, right?
So, I decided to try doing everything I wanted alone as if I were taking myself out. And guess what? It feels way better to go out and have fun with yourself than go out with fake friends who don’t give a damn about you. This is what my new normal is. And I don’t feel lonely anymore, I don’t feel I need anyone to uplift my mood and create memories with.
So, come on, let’s create a new normal where you can be alone but not lonely. A mindset shift that allows you to enjoy your own company instead of waiting for someone until your hair turns gray. All in all, accept the new normal.
2. You Have a Best Bud:
I am in my early 20s and as per the standard set by society, I am supposed to just have fun, date random guys, dance to a song that I don’t understand, and call it LIVING LIFE.
But hey, I don’t want any of this. I am the kind of person who wants to be successful, have everything I set my mind on, and make money but at the same time, I wish to live a slow life in a small village in Scotland. Quite amazing, right?
However, as I said, the path to success is lonely and you can either choose to hang out with your friends every other day or you can be focused to achieve your goals. I chose the latter one and trust me, it works so much better.
When you work on your goals, improve yourself every day, and bit by bit start achieving your goals, you will realize that you are now the best friend of your dreams, of success and achievements. Every small achievement would be a new friend added to your list. A kind of friend who will make you proud of yourself.
So, I suggest instead of looking out for friends in the external world like me, try to make friends with achievements and see how your loneliness starts working out in your favor.
3. Challenge Yourself; Learn New Things:
When was the last time, you took a challenge and worked your ass off to win it?
If it makes you feel any better, the last challenge I took when back in college. So, again, don't feel bad. But here is a harsh truth, you and I are working on autopilot mode where we pretty much repeat the same stuff every day. And that is one of the reasons, your creative side is lost, you have lost touch with your inner child, you feel anxious, you feel life is not exhilarating and why you forget small details.
(You can read the whole research about ‘what happens to your brain when you do anything new’ or ‘how you can become a better thinker if you take on new challenges’ Since I think data is boring so I leave that job to you)
Now, what kind of challenges you can take ifYou are like me, an introvert with no friends to join you and
If you are a BUSY person
So, let me give you my example; in the month of September, I took the challenge of reading 7 books in 7 days. Now, I am not an unemployed person, I have a lot of work to do like, working on my client’s projects, writing Medium articles, an Instagram page to create content for, writing book summaries for my website, and recording YouTube videos. In such a case, when I took the challenge of reading 7 books in 7 days, I was 100% focused and dedicated to completing the challenge while not compromising my work.
Did you know what happened? I completed the challenge but this challenge made me realize that if you give your brain something challenging, you wouldn’t be having enough time to feel lonely or sorry for yourself. You would rather be excited for the next day to come and accomplish the challenge.
So, I dare you to take on new challenges or learn something to make your life interesting, fun, and exciting. You have so much to experience and enjoy that I don’t think you have any time to waste on feeling sorry for yourself. Design your every day in such a way that you have something to look forward to. It could be a new challenge, a new concept to learn, a date with yourself or anything else that you think will give you a reason to feel pumped up.
4. Know Thyself:
If I ask you who are you, what would be your answer?
Don’t tell me your name or profession because all these things are just external tags that you have collected since the day you were born. Knowing yourself means becoming aware of your thoughts, your choices, your behavior pattern, your unique thought process, and things like these which cannot be seen by anyone but only be felt by you.
Since you have developed the habit of hanging around with people all the time, whenever you sit alone, your mind starts screaming about all things that you need to worry about or work for. Perhaps, this is the reason why most people find their own company so toxic. You are scared that you might see your true version if you sit with yourself for more than 2 minutes. You are anxious about meeting your inner child. You don’t want to know yourself. You don’t want to know what their inner child wants.
However, what you don’t realize is that once you know yourself fully, right from your bright side to deep dark secrets, you would love to spend time with yourself. You will start finding loneliness peaceful.
So, take out at least 10 minutes from your busy schedule every day and talk to yourself, listen to yourself, be with yourself, make fun of your own thoughts, laugh at a joke that you cracked inside your head, discuss your day with yourself, ask yourself what do you want, ask yourself how are you feeling today, what do you want to have for dinner, what would you like to achieve in the next 3 months and where would you like to travel in the next 12 months.
That’s how you make loneliness work in your favor. That’s how you become emotionally independent. That’s how you make your life more memorable, fun, and enjoyable. You are not on this earth just to make others laugh and happy. You are here for living life in a way that even God thinks, damn this dude is having real fun. Enough of crying for others' presence in your life. Enough of feeling sorry for yourself. It is the time you make your life count. You are not so bad that you find spending time with yourself lonely or sad. You are one big diamond who needs to learn to shine even in the darkest of times. That’s what you are, remember that.
Conclusion:
I am not denying loneliness doesn’t exist, it does. Loneliness can surprise you suddenly even when you are laughing with people you love. But the difference lies in how you deal with it. Most people feel depressed and anxious by the mere thought of being alone but the reality is you can never be surrounded by people all the time. Some day or the other, people will leave. However, you just have to accept that loneliness is a part of growing up. You cannot vanish loneliness completely, all you can do is try not to let it make you feel sad or dead.
And let me remind you again, you just don’t know yourself enough yet. If you had, you wouldn’t have felt lonely. So, know yourself and learn to enjoy your own company as if you are being recorded for a Netflix movie.
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