Month: January 2024

Have you ever watched the TV-show “Alone”? You probably can guess that I am not someone who promotes watching TV shows, however, if you want to learn something about humans, and what happens to the mind when one is in absolute isolation in nature and has to forage for food to survive, I highly recommend it. This post is not about the TV-show, I am sorry to disappoint, but it got me thinking about being alone, why we may not want to be alone, but also what great opportunity awaits us by consciously choosing “alone-time”.

To start off with, let’s get clear on one thing. Being alone and feeling lonely are not the same. Most people use these words interchangeably and confuse one with the other. In its simplest explanation, being alone means not having any people physically around oneself, i.e. you are going for a walk in the woods by yourself with no other person in sight. In contrast, feeling lonely, is an emotional state. It has nothing to do with whether there are people around or not; it is an emotion. Likewise, one cannot feel alone, because alone is a physical state. In fairness, and probably the reason why people don’t differentiate between the two, one can feel lonely when one is alone. This is often a reason why we choose not to be in isolation. We are scared, we may find ourselves feeling lonely. In pursuit of avoiding such feeling, we surround ourselves with people we don’t necessarily like and do things we dread. Ironically, by that very action we may find ourselves exactly there; drowning in loneliness whilst being in a sea of people.

We live in a society where being alone is not necessarily celebrated, rather the opposite. It could even be seen as social ‘suicide’ when we choose isolation. We are supposed to go to the parties, we are supposed to surround ourselves with people, we are supposed to fill our weekends with brunches, lunches, coffees, and dinners. We are supposed to have a significant other. We are supposed to…. you fill in the gaps. If we don’t do or have most of these things that the TV ads tell us to, and choose solitude instead, society lets us know that we are not following the norm. People will look at us funny and will question what we do by ourselves. They will wonder whether there is something wrong with us. People will call us ‘different’, ‘strange’ and even ‘difficult’.  

Besides the social aspect, the pressure of fitting in, and the fear of being lonely, there is several other reasons for not choosing alone-time. One such reason is a complicated past and we have co-dependency issues and/or were abandoned as a child and as such we are too scared of solitude. Another explanation might be that we don’t actually like ourselves that much. It could be because when we are alone, we might reflect on situations that we didn’t handle well in the past and we dwell on them. It could also be said that by spending time alone, a lot of uncomfortable thoughts may come up and we don’t want to deal with those. Another reason could be that we don’t know who we are, what we like, and we are too scared to find out. Inevitably, we miss a great chance to put a stop to the rubbish we tell ourselves, discontinue that negativity that runs on auto-pilot, and discover treasures we didn’t know we had within us.

Some people cope with being alone better than others. It is easier for introverts to spend time by themselves, as compared to extroverts. This is purely because introverts recharge their batteries by being on their own, whereas extroverts get energy from being around others. It is also important to mention that we are not meant to be by ourselves all the time. We are social creatures after all and as such need connection with others. A point also needs to be made that sometimes being alone is not the right choice and, in some situations, one should surround oneself with others, but one has to know when those moments are. We need to find a balance and choose healthy alone-time to not only build a strong relationship with ourselves but to build a strong mind and we can only do that when we make time for ourselves.

Being alone and choosing to spend time by yourself, can open you up to the most amazing relationship yet- the relationship with yourself. You see, you come here alone and you leave this place alone. People come and go. Situations and events come and go. Jobs come and go. But the one who is always by your side is you. You will always have the support of yourself. You can always rely on yourself. When you choose spending time with yourself and go within, you build the strength to stop relying on others and finding worth within yourself. You stop asking for permission to be you and start becoming you. Being by yourself means you get an opportunity to get to know your ideas and visions and understand when you stand in your own way and how you get out of the way. A strong mind can only be fostered when one builds a strong relationship with oneself and when one knows oneself that well to master oneself.

So find some time to get to know yourself and stop running away from the great person that you are.

Given my last post was about sacrifice, it is only natural to dedicate this post to motivation and discipline. A lot of people talk about motivation and doing the thing (whatever the thing is), when they are motivated or when they feel like it. Most of us wait for motivation to surface in order for us to change something. We think we are not ready until motivation inspires us.

Whilst there may be some desire to start something, often the trouble is the action-part of starting. You see, motivation does not necessarily mean action. We may truly want to start making changes and want to commit to a new routine, but we don’t know where to start, or what to do. We feel, we are not ready because we have nothing, and we know nothing. At that stage, motivation is even too scared to show its face. If we consider though, that our starting point is exactly where we currently are, we can start right there. We don’t need anything to start, but ourselves. I guess we are still waiting for the action-part of motivation to kick in, and in the meantime, we get busy consulting the book of excuses.

For some people, motivation, in the sense of being the driving force of action, does shows up and we start doing something. Usually at the point when we have had enough, or we randomly get inspired by someone or something, only to find ourselves weeks or sometimes just days after, right back where we began. We find ourselves in the past, doing what we have always done. We know what to expect and continue living a life that we don’t even like that much. When the pain of Groundhog Day gets too much, motivation knocks on our door, we do something, and then stop again. And it keeps repeating itself over and over again. By now, we have successfully created a Yo-Yo Effect, just not with our bodies, but with our dreams. We bring them closer to then move them further away. We kill our dreams faster than a knife fight in a phone booth.

We wait for a new habit to start when either motivation is high, or there is a deadline that we set ourselves for after an event in the calendar. Statistically speaking, more than 90% of people fail with their New Year’s resolution by February. Why would that be? One of the most common reasons is because motivation has disappeared. Likewise, the people who wait until Monday to change, fail at some point or other. They may not fail in the first week, but at some stage, they will, because motivation has gone. If we truly want to change, we don’t have to wait for a new year, or for after the holiday season. We don’t have to wait for a specific day of the week, or even tomorrow. If we want to change and if we say enough is enough, we start right here, right now.

It is also important to consider the factors attributing to motivation. For those among us where motivation is externally driven, i.e. more money if we do something, external validation if we lose weight, it is a much more challenging undertaking sticking to new habits. For those of us who in fact link motivation intrinsically to an internal value, where achieving something means something to us and it becomes a necessity to achieve a goal, it will be much easier. This way, we understand why we do something even when it sucks. That is where discipline is our best friend because we do the thing even when we are not motivated.

So the point is that motivation is fleeting and it is discipline that keeps us going. Discipline means to do the things that we may not want to do but are necessary. When we don’t want to do a workout because we don’t feel like it, or we don’t want to eat the healthy food because we feel like the sugary treat, it is discipline that keeps us in line. Motivation will most certainly not be there when life is not going our way but discipline is at our side and we do it anyway. Discipline is making a commitment to ourselves that we are not doing something for the short-term, but we are changing our entire life little by little, day by day. Discipline is applying ourselves every single day, and do what we set out to do, regardless of us being ready, feeling like it, or having a mediocre day.

Find it within yourself to do the hard part, to suffer through the workout, the writing, the long meditation, the long hours of study, whatever it is. Find it within yourself to work hard on yourself to liberate yourself from the chains of the past and to start living the life that you want. It is the small things that we do every day that accumulate to the big things in the end. Love yourself enough to want better for yourself and keep working even when you don’t feel like it.

Sacrifice is a funny thing. Most people conceptually understand what sacrifice is; to give up something to get something else. In theory it all sounds easy but in practice it looks quite different. We operate as if we don’t have to give up something to get something else. We live like we can have the cake and eat it too. Even worse, we get to a place where we think it is okay not to do what is required, because no one else is giving up the things either. Why should we? And hey, we need to make sure we fit in.

The truth is that life is a choice, life is an ‘either/or’ situation. Life is full of decisions where we have to choose one way or the other (or indecisions, which are also choices). There has to be something to give up, in order to get something else. Put in simple terms, you know that in order to release weight and get into better shape you have to sacrifice your potato-time on the couch for working out. You have to forgo the junk food for healthy food. If you want to be a medical doctor you have to spend time studying, attending university, endure long residency hours, and forgo sleep and your social life. If you want to save more money you have to either spend time finding a better paid job or an additional job or spend less on the things that you buy (or both).

Whilst we are quite aware of it, the willingness to make sacrifices for our own betterment seems limited. Maybe we don’t strive for attaining our full potential because the thought of doing the actual work is scary and quite possibly overwhelming. Maybe we aim for average instead because it is easier and everyone else is doing it and seems to be fine with it. We accept our external environment as our reality, and we accept that the mountain may just be too steep to climb.

I guess the biggest hurdle in sacrifice is the ‘giving up’ component of it all because it feels like we miss out on all the fun stuff, but possibly on all the toxic stuff too that we secretly love and are attached to. One interesting one I have come across is having to give up complaining to others about our situation. Isn’t the whinging about how bad our situation is just so intoxicating? We can blame someone or something for our misfortune. We don’t have to take responsibility. It sure may be a bad situation that we find ourselves in and it may not be our fault to have gotten to that position either, but it sure is our job to get ourselves out of it. No one is coming to save us and no amount of whinging about it will change that either. We have to save ourselves and start making sacrifices.

At some point we have to wonder if we are living or purely existing and if existing is the choice, that is fine. For me, existing is too painful. It is a life filled with being run by my emotions instead of taking measured steps towards a life that I truly want. The point is, it is up to us whether we are willing to sacrifice our current destructive habits and dare to do the uncommon, i.e. getting up at 4.30am, not eating dessert, not participating in gossip and spending time by ourselves, to build and work on our craft. Isn’t the pursuit of our own greatness more fulfilling than leading a ‘normal life’ as prescribed by society?

I think sacrifice has a bad reputation but if we are willing to see it as a friend, sacrifice can actually help us achieve living our best life, and it frees us up to create great habits and disciplines to live a life that means something to us.