Learn How to Be Happy Alone and Why It’s Beneficial
Relationships are an important part of our lives. It enables us to stir up the element of joy in our lives and make fine memories that we can relish for the rest of our lives. It is the experience of being with other people that enables us to learn new things and enhance our knowledge. But it doesn’t mean that solitude doesn’t have any benefits to offer. The importance of learning to be comfortable in solitude is just as important as social skills. The technological gadgets that are in our hands at all times and various applications which promise to keep us connected have tricked our minds into believing that being surrounded by people is no longer an option but a necessity. If you think so too, here’s a shocker for you. Spending too much time with people and finding no time for yourself in solitude can actually deprive you of a few personality features which can optimize your personal and professional lives.
It is a scientifically proven fact that spending time in solitude has a range of benefits to offer in terms of your health and well-being in general. The problem is, not a lot of people are convinced of spending time alone as they are not familiar with the benefits that they might be missing. It is also because of a misconception that being alone and being lonely are one and the same thing where psychologically speaking, there’s a stark difference between the two. It can’t be further emphasized that the aim of this article is to enlighten you of the importance of solitude i-e being alone and not of being lonely. What’s interesting to know is that learning to be comfortable in solitude is the very cure for your feelings of loneliness, in the first place.
Here are the top 5 benefits why solitude is rather important for you.
Meet Your True Self
Truth is, being excessively among the people accustom you to present yourself that is acceptable for your social circle. It slowly starts to mold your personality so that it aligns perfectly with the expectations of the people that you spend time with. In other words, socializing more than necessary has a risk of making you succumb to the peer-pressure and lose your true self.
In solitude, however, you are the master of yourself. All of your decisions are based on your own thoughts, opinions, ideas, feelings, and emotions. It offers you a time-out from all of the external influences. There’s a feeling of being in charge of deciding what to do without having the need for external approval.
With being the boss of making your own choices, you get a better insight into your personality and get to understand yourself genuinely as a person. Learning the importance of solitude enables you to be comfortable with the person that you are. The deeper your understanding of yourself, the more genuine and authentic you can be among the people. You won’t ever feel the need to be pretentious again.
Be A Better Human For Everyone
Socializing with people has a downside of feeding it into your brain that certain people are your “squad” and you are required to feel more strongly for them. Think about it, if one of your friends had an accident and was admitted to a hospital, would the pain that you’ll feel for him be [restrict] significantly greater than what you would have felt if you saw a random accident on the road? This is because excessive socializing confines the best of our emotions for our friends and family and we are, mostly, left with nothing but an empty vase for the rest of the people.
Learning to be comfortable in solitude, however, can pull out the best of ourselves not only for the people that are close to us but for all of humanity in general. By removing such barriers, solitude can teach us to be more empathetic and compassionate for people regardless of whether or not we know them in person. Being backed by science, it is a remarkable trait that each and every single one of us should learn to adopt. After all, isn’t this what is destined to make this world a better place for everyone?
Summon Your Creativity And Productivity
Remember the time when you working in your cubicle and requested your colleagues to leave you alone for a while because you wanted to work on an important report that was due in the evening? Why do you think you wanted to be alone to work on the report? Why is it that the artists like musicians, painters, authors, prefer to work in solitude rather than while being surrounded by people?
The sole reason is that solitude has been scientifically associated with an enhanced state of creativity and productivity. The human brain is designed in a fashion that it works at its optimum when it is free from all distractions and noises including that of being surrounded by people. Not only are you going to summon your creative side as you decide to work in solitude, but you would also be able to perform significantly better in terms of the overall quality of work as well as the efficiency. If you usually get something done at work in an hour, try doing the same thing in solitude and you would be able to accomplish the task at hand much sooner than an hour.
Preserve Your Mental Health
It is understandable that socializing is required for optimum mental health, however, it must not be condoned that solitude plays its part in promoting your mental health as well. Like any other skill, it takes a bit of time, effort, and practice before you can master the art of being comfortable in solitude, but it’s totally worthwhile since it helps in preserving your mental health in the long run.
Being comfortable in solitude means that you are no longer reliant on other people for your own happiness, self-esteem, or self-confidence. This is what promotes a sense of satisfaction that you can extract from life. As per the studies, people who have learned to be comfortable while being alone are less likely to face excessive levels of stress in their day to day lives and the likelihood of depression in such individual is confined to a bare minimum.
Considering the aforementioned information, it won’t be wrong to infer that socializing excessively opens the door for peer-pressure that turns into a leading cause of mental problems including stress, anxiety, depression, and other common mental disorders. All of this can be conveniently avoided if only you invested an effort into learning to be comfortable in solitude.
Focus On Your Life As An Individual
The importance of planning your life with your partner, the family members that you are living with, or perhaps the business partner that you are currently working with is indispensable. But the moment you get too consumed in such joint planning that you fail to find time to ensure that you are not missing on your life as an individual is the moment when it gets messy.
A little bit of time alone presents an opportunity to be proactive in shaping your life as an individual. It enables you to determine your life goals and see if you are headed towards accomplishing them. Such a reflection can provide precious information that highlights whether or not your life is in line with your morals, values, and dreams. By focusing on your life as an individual, you can make the necessary tweaks every here and there to make sure that you are living your life on your own terms.
Being too consumed in socializing to an extent that we lose the sense of identity is a threat common to all of us in the present time and age.
Finale Words
Nothing in excess can ever turn out to be good for yourself. Even water, that is known as the essence of life, can work against you if you start to consume too much of it. Like everything else, therefore, balance is the key here. What’s imperative is to make yourself capable of finding the right balance between socializing and spending time in solitude. With such a balance comes positivity in your life. This is the only way that you can get to experience the best of both worlds.
If you are an extrovert who has spent years of his life into socializing, it may hit you hard once you try to learn to be comfortable in solitude. There are going to be multiple failures but your ultimate success is only defined by perseverance. It is going to take some time for you to start witnessing the benefits that solitude has to offer. But once you start to experience the benefits, the journey thereafter will become a convenient one for you. Simply put, it is the beginning that is troublesome. Once you are across the beginning, you are all set to reap the benefits of solitude.[/restrict]
