In today’s society, the idea of “Being Alone” has often had a negative association around it. We often misunderstand the difference between being alone and being lonely. These two ideas are widely different from each other. Being alone is where the magic happens. It’s a place of solitude where we find inner peace and new thoughts and ideas immerge from within us. The feeling of being alone is actually a positive feeling and we should make it a point to get comfortable with it and embrace it whenever we get an opportunity to be by ourselves.
For this we first need to understand the difference between being alone from being lonely. Being alone is a choice that we are free to make for ourselves at any point in time in our lives. It nurtures our inner being and helps us to explore new dimensions of our lives which eventually can help us to live a better life. Whereas being lonely is heart breaking. It is a feeling that can affect us mentally as well as physically. It is a state of mind that takes over our thoughts and emotions which do not do any good for us or for the people around us.
Today, I would like to share a few benefits that we all can reap out of this idea of being alone. Starting today we can all make it a point to find some time for ourselves to be alone for a while in our lives to find peace and harmony with ourselves as well as with the people around us.
Inspires Creativity: Being alone brings in new ideas, develops our mind to solve problems better, closes us off from the background noise and shuts down the external factors that are usually a reason for distraction in our lives to concentrate on something better and more meaningful. It not only brings out our originality but also helps us in re-innovating ourselves to something completely different that we have never found about ourselves.
Boosts Mental Strength: Have you ever watched a movie alone in the theatre or gone to a restaurant alone for lunch or dinner? At first, we may really find the idea of doing such things awkward, however once we have experienced it, you will feel free. Studies have proven that doing such activities alone can increase personal happiness, help you to deal with stress better and help avoid depression.
Better Planning: If you have ever sat at one place all by yourself, you would have noticed that our mind often wanders through our past, present and future all at the same time. Being alone over a period of time helps us to gradually wander through these events one at a time. It helps us to gauge our past and not repeat our mistakes that we have made in the past life, it helps us to live in the present and enjoy every moment of it and it will guide us to make conscious decisions to ensure the future is pleasant.
Break from Stress: Stress is more about how we react to the situations that we come across in our lives that we have never handled before. A famous author by the name of William James mentioned in one of his books “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over the other” As long as you have a calm mind, you can break free of such thoughts and eventually from such stressful situations as well.
100% Yourself: We often wear different hats in our daily lives. Professional hats at work, personal hats at home, a hat of a child when we are with our kids, the hat of maturity when we are with elders etc. Juggling with these hats’ day in and day out can often be challenging and, in the bargain, we forget to be ourselves. Being alone helps us understand our emotions and we can be 100% unapologetic towards our emotions only when we are with ourselves.
More Empathetic: A recent Harvard study proved that alone time helps us to be more empathetic. We are always caught up with people around us all the time. It’s often WE versus THEM. Being away from people for a while brings out the compassion within us for these people around us who do not fit into our inner circle. That way we learn to appreciate people more for who they are and not what we want them to be.
Know Yourself: We are often involved in getting to know others. Now a days it is less of a personal interaction and more of a digital interaction on social media. This leads to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) This fear keeps us glued to our devices on social media thus not finding enough time to explore ourselves. Instead of having fun ourselves, we are busy looking at others having fun which eventually leads to sadness and depression. Always remember that no one will post their sad times and failures on social media. Each one has their ups and downs and it is up to us how we can up our game towards it.
Boosts Memory: Being alone is like meditation. It helps you to catch up with your brain and helps you calm your nervous system thus improving blood flow and boosting your memory. It helps in reducing anxiety and frustration to a great extent. There are many articles online that can help us meditate better.
Avoid Mindless Consumption: What do we do when we have nothing to do? We reach out to our phones and that’s where the mindless consumption begins. We are constantly consuming information on our mobile gadgets on a daily basis and thanks to social media that percentage has doubled in the past few years and even tripled in this pandemic. Have you ever sat for a long lecture in your college? Have you ever experienced the freedom from boredom when the lecture is done? Being alone will help you experience that freedom from the regular mindless consumption that we are constantly engaged in that will not help us in our daily lives.
Being alone is not only a requirement for each one of us but in this busy life it’s more like a luxury. Find time to be alone by yourself. Take every opportunity that gives you time to be alone. Embrace it and learn from it. There is no doubt it will help you more than waste your time. If anyone of you have never considered being alone and this would be your first time, do share your experiences in the comments below. It will surely help us and others out here to learn more.
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Written by Jaison Noronha
Idea Source : Personal Experiences
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