“I’m afraid of being alone for the rest of my life.” “Just leave me alone.” “I just want to be alone with my thoughts right now.” How is it that we are so fickle with this little emotion of loneliness?
As Edgar Allan Poe famously describes,
“So lovely was the loneliness
Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,
And the tall pines that towered around.”
When I hear those words I am filled with peace. One of my favorite places on earth is nature. There is nothing quite like being in nature alone with your thoughts; it is so peaceful! Just listening to the sound of the whistling wind over a lake, or the swaying pines above. Ahh…the joy is insurmountable! And yet, why can that same loneliness induce such fear and dread?
“Then — ah I would awake
To the terror of the lone lake.”
That same lake that brought peace, is now bringing fear and dread; how can that be? Loneliness is one of the only emotions we both hate and love. No one enjoys being jealous of others, just as no one truly hates loving someone. But when it comes to loneliness, we both love and dread it at any given moment. Why is that?
I’m not a philosopher or psychologist, but I am a human. And that’s all it takes to tell you that the state of being alone is simply when there are no people around you. But how come that brings joy some times and fear others?
I believe it is actually anxiety about our past or our future that makes us feel lonely. It is perhaps the worry that you are missing out and you wish you were with others. Or maybe it is just being sick of people and needing to rest and recuperate from a strenuous life.
The bottom line is, loneliness is something we should all experience and practice. At the same time, relationships are something we should all grow as well.
They are both important to our sanity. If you struggle with feeling lonely when you really shouldn’t, then you might actually not be feeling lonely at all. The issue might just be that you are not living in the present. You are either worrying about the future or completely focused on the past. One of the best ways to combat loneliness is to live fully in the now.
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This post was previously published on medium.com and is republished here with permission from the author.
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