Why are people so much afraid of silence? Perhaps, the emptiness we feel in our immediate surroundings re-echoes the emptiness within us. We’d rather do anything than spend time with ourselves. I’m not talking about isolation. I’m talking about solitude.
Social media might have given us the biggest audience to showcase whatever we have but this is the time to realize you’re your biggest fan. You need to appreciate your own ingenuity because a time will come when others won’t, yet you have to keep on keeping on.
We now live in a world where even teenagers think they are busy. Busy doing what, brushing your teeth? There are times in your life that you’d need to self-quarantine. Not just a vacation to enjoy yourself, but a time to reflect. It’s by self-reflecting that we get to appreciate the people in our lives. You don’t have to wait till you lose something before you appreciate it.
Not spending time with ourselves has become the reason why people are in dire need for people to appreciate and/or agree with them. Low self-esteem. No self-approval. Yet, such a huge ego. Once all the distractions go away and the ego has nothing to feed on, then we can see beyond the fog and above the blindspots. But the distractions barely go away by chance. That’s why it’s necessary to be intentional about this.
If you don’t want to spend time with yourself, who should? People who don’t like to spend time with themselves have so much insecurities about themselves. It appears every time they are alone. That’s why it’s easier to put so much burden on others around us and have unrealistic expectations for them and yet undermine our abilities in areas we are good at. And funny enough, we begin to think we’re so much better in areas we aren’t that good at, actually.
It’s only by self-reflection that we practice metacognition. It requires us to relinquish our usual egocentric perspective and examine ourselves from the outside. Ironically, it’s when you don’t spend time alone that you begin to feel lonely. You feel that people aren’t there or won’t be there for you. Don’t expect people to be there for you if you aren’t there for yourself.
Spending time alone is ultimately thinking about what you think about. Perhaps, boredom will kick in, but boredom is the bedrock of creativity. If you’re not tired of something, why would you want to change it? Great inventions have come out of solitude. Sometimes, there are too many distractions that we don’t even have the time to think stuff through. With solitude comes clarity.
This season of quarantine has taught us many things, especially things we thought we couldn’t live without. Life is really about the basics. Once life is not built on the basics, it loses its meaning. So now that you have enough time to spend with yourself, do well to fall in love with yourself, tackle your insecurities, and change those habits you don’t like about yourself.
I love you ❤️
Majority would agree