Understanding Your Loneliness

Loneliness, most of us might have felt alone during some part of our life. We might have even wondered why we feel alone even when we are surrounded by family and friends. It has been identified that the generation aged from 16 years to 25 years are suffering more from loneliness. What is loneliness? Simply defined, loneliness is an unpleasant emotional response to perceived isolation. Some people might say that it's the lack of friends or rather the company around you.

A person might feel alone due to various reasons. One reason might be the lack of stable relationships. Some of us have the experience of having friends who have been present in our life since childhood while some of us find it difficult to maintain stable relationships with friends. It's mostly because of the quality of the people we associate and the lack of understanding they have about us. In friendship it is normal to be felt understood and respected. There are many occasions where I felt alone because I felt that no one understands me. It is my opinion that it is very important to have at least one person who understands you. 

Your loneliness could be because of who you are. Society has divided us into two. People who don't interact much with others and are less social are called introverts and the people who are social and associate a lot of other individuals are called extroverts. What society doesn't realize is that these are just labels. Many introverts will like the occasional company of people and more extroverts will need some alone time. Most of us are a combination of these two, we are called ambiverts. What we need to realize is that we all need some alone time and it is ok to feel alone from time to time. 

Some of us might feel alone because we have high expectations. Not everyone can live up to the standers that we are imagining and this might be the reason for some people to avoid us. It won't do any harm if we keep our expectations at the minimum. 

While the above is about loneliness, there is another area called solitude. Solitude is the state of being alone without being lonely and this can lead to self-awareness. They say that tranquility is the new luxury and tranquility can be achieved through solitude. One might seek solitude if he or she is on a journey to develop themselves on a spiritual level or when they are on a self-actualization process. During this period of self-actualization you will grow yourself and when that happens your standers, thinking levels, and understanding levels will grow. It will create a gap between the people who are close to you. You might not be able to relate to them at the same level as before, therefore you might feel a sense of loneliness. It will help to develop new friendships that are at your level while maintaining the old relationships you had. 

Solitude also helps to understand who you are. Understanding who you are will help you when maintaining the relationships you have with the outer world. Most of us don't know who we are, we see ourselves through other people's eyes and that can be deceiving most of the time. When we look at the big picture, we are all alone. We have always been alone. We need to understand that our death is coming, it is inevitable. We might have friends and family with us near our death bed, but when the time comes, we will face death alone. When you are at your worst state, and drowning with problems, you will face those problems alone, you will have to figure it out alone. Sometimes we might not even admit those problems to ourselves simply because we are scared of the outcome. There is only one person who you will live the rest of your life with and that is yourself. That is why facing these problems of loneliness and solitude is very important and it should be faced before you hit the old age. 

Life is like an iceberg. The outside world will only see the tip of the iceberg while the owner of that life will see all the work that went through to make that iceberg look so beautiful. Each of us has our inner demons, some of us don't even know who these inner demons are. That is why most of the modern-day relationships fail. Most of us only show the icing of the cake while the cake is rotting. Even we haven't seen what the cake looks like. To understand our inner demons, it is important to spend time alone. When you are alone, you are free to free yourself. This is something most of us are scared to do because we don't know what the outcome would be and we don't know if we like to see that side of ourselves, but if we don't do this we will lead an unhappy life where we haven't understood our core. 

To face this problem of loneliness or solitude, you need to turn inward. You need to understand who you are and stop running away from it. Stop distracting yourself from understating your inner demons. Face your deepest fears alone and with faith. Understand the beauty of existence and connect with your existence. Most people just skim through life without realizing the beauty of it. You might have lost a loved one recently and must be feeling alone, you might have had a breakup and think none of the relationships work, you might have been single for a long time and might feel that one wants to be with you. This is the time where you need to be serious about your growth. Once you achieve this growth you will attract the right people to your life. You will start to see the true nature of life. 

The high-level solution to this problem is to develop a strong relationship with yourself. Commit to the path of your growth, make this mission the core of your life. Try and understand the purpose of your life, why you are here. 

The ultimate goal of your life would be to be happy and to achieve that happiness while being alone.

#peacelovehappiness