Heave!

With the growth of dependence on technology and automation, people are getting used to loneliness and spending a huge portion of their lives on technology. As described in the previous post Sailing with no wind people are getting more fake “friends” and are actually getting lonelier day after day. One of the key survival kits today is the “Solitude” kit. So What’s the difference between loneliness and solitude?

Loneliness is a state of isolation, while Solitude, on the other hand, is a state of being alone without being lonely. How is that possible?

Solitude is a positive state of self-engagement where one can provide themselves with  sufficient self-company and filling the vacuum with a lot of inner richness. It’s a very private time of reflection, inner searching or growth.

Great people in the world mastered solitude .. they used this in deep reading, exploring the beauty of nature, and creatively working on unique projects.

Solitude is a personal choice, to get out of the noise, to depend less on others around you, and to seek some enjoyment in the quiet surrounding. It’s an opportunity to renew self goals, refresh personal vision and get away from regular life distractions. In other words, it replenishes us.

Unfortunately, with life becoming more material, and more people losing the values of honesty, integrity, friendship, contribution, loyalty and love, we all need to learn the art of solitude to survive and move forward. We need to get more self-reliable and seek help from within. Once we find the inner peace and strength, we can then even spread this around to those who need it ..

So how do we learn the art of solitude?

1. Take the Pain

“I live in that solitude which is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity” 

Albert Einstein

Solitude is definitely painful in the beginning, but rewarding at the end, and the majority of people who mastered solitude had to pass through this pain journey, whether by their own discretion or enforced upon them. For example, the loss of a close friend or a dear person in one’s life can drive people to withdraw and isolate, and the betrayal of someone by a friend / colleague can also cause people to withdraw .. Here people will face “Loneliness” first, before they experience solitude .. Loneliness is painful and is usually imposed by others, while solitude is a personal choice to get away from the noise and self-reflect, then self-enjoy.

So the first step is expecting the pain .. fighting against your own habits of relying on others and expecting joy / happiness to come from others .. Force yourself to get away from distractions regularly .. Plan it and manage the pain..

2. Look, Listen and Learn

“Solitude is the great teacher, and to learn its lessons you must pay attention to it.”

Deepak Chopra

Change your glasses! Start looking deeply into things you took for granted, reflect on objects and phenomena around you more deeply. Read about things that you wanted to know long time back .. remember when you were a kid and had some unanswered questions? Read about them and reflect .. create new questions that need an answer .. search for the answer yourself, go to new places and explore, listen to new podcasts, radio channels and enrich your knowledge with things you wish to know about.

3. Measure the outcome

“Without great solitude no serious work is possible”

Pablo Picasso

Solitude will bring you growth .. you will definitely grow in knowledge at least, and if you do this well, you can also grow in skills by trying new things .. But you know what is the most important growth point?

Freedom!

One of the worst ever life jails is waiting for someone to support or expecting someone to help .. It’s the worst ever virtual jail that we all get imprisoned in. Breaking the chain and freeing ourselves from this terrible feeling is one of the most important achievements of solitude. Learning to build strength from within, and creating an inner center of power is a definite long-term win for solitude. We might still need some people around us and we will not lose any social skills, but the effect of people on breaking our hearts or under-delivering emotions will be much less on us .. Solitude helps people change the center of influence from external to internal, and then treat anything that passes by in a much smaller size and focus than before ..

It’s great to be in teams, and together people achieve a lot, but to survive, we need to learn to depend less on others and expect almost nothing from others .. we need to generate power from within, and grow this generator to produce enough power for our lives .. we are rowing our life boat in a deep blue sea, and to reach the shore we can only depend on our own muscles to heave ..

Written by:

Engagement Expert, International Speaker & Pragmatic researcher