Appreciating my own company—It's something that I'm still learning to do, actually.
How do I break my cycle of constant escapism? How should I be comfortable in my solitude? How can I appreciate my own alone-ness and build a better bond with myself?
I feel like many people of my generation—we have a special problem with this—the fear of being alone. It’s like we’re doing everything we can to specifically avoid our own lives, our own problems, our own thoughts. We follow up on so many people’s lives on social media, we always occupy ourselves with the latest production on TV and we always need someone with us to do the activities we want to do. We can’t even eat alone somewhere without feeling incredibly self-conscious.
Oh, we can’t be torn away from our phones. Hardly. Barely. I often see groups of kids together at my college, all sitting together, scrolling through their phones and are probably friends, but I guess I wouldn’t really know because hardly a word was spoken to each other. During my trips home, I would count the number of people in the subway car, on the bus, who had their eyes glued to their phone screen just to pass the time and always, more than half the car and bus chose to be occupied on their phone until they’ve arrived at their stop.
In these attempts to be engaged with everybody and everything else out in the world, we’re avoiding each other and we’re avoiding ourselves.
Why are we afraid to be alone? Why is solitude something to be avoided? Why do we constantly feel the need to be with others, to be called upon by others, as if our actual happiness depended on it?
I ask myself those questions constantly as I try to take the time to derive pleasure and appreciation from my own company. I exit Spotify, silence my phone, turn off the TV, sit on my bed, close my eyes and try to be introspective. Sometimes I get so caught up in mundane and inconsequential routines of human interaction that I neglect making time just to be alone with my thoughts. I neglect making time for myself when I’m spending most of it, almost out of necessity, with other people.
It feels rejuvenating, being disconnected from everything for just a while. Just being alone in my own company.
Loving and appreciating yourself isn’t egotistical, it’s something important and something we should all make sure we do. When we take the time out to listen to our thoughts and to get comfortable in our alone-ness, we can repair the relationship we have with ourselves and build the value we hold for ourselves as well. We’ll be likelier to take our own advice and rely less on other people for our satisfaction and best of all, we’ll feel less of the pressing need to take ourselves away, far away, from where we are at this moment.
Of course, I’m not saying to become a complete hermit. Not at all. I, despite often being shy and introverted, genuinely enjoy the company of others but I had to really know myself, learn how to be comfortable, truly comfortable, with me, myself and I. Only you can truly fulfill yourself—it’s pointless and even destructive to always rely on others for your own happiness and comfort. I wanted to appreciate my alone-ness, treasure it, revel in it, while learning how to be happy in it. It’s not simply isolating yourself from everyone else, but learning to feel happy with your presence and what you’ve got. And once we learn to do just that, we rely less on other things and other people to spoon-feed us happiness when we can finally achieve it ourselves on our own.
