The Joy of Being Alone & Bored
Why enjoying your own company is the bedrock of self-esteem and good relationships
The best part of living alone is having no one to share with, allowing you to do whatever you want on your own time. These can also be the worst parts of living alone. Blissful silence can turn into loneliness. Inactivity can turn into boredom. Solitude can turn into isolation. So sometimes, as I prepare to go out, I ask myself: am I seeking connections to be social or to avoid the fear of being alone?
Modernity offers a paradox of connectedness and loneliness. Somewhere along the way, we forget (or maybe never even learn) how to be alone. While we can fill an empty schedule with brunches and a silent room with conversations, at the core of life remains the individual — like the pit of an avocado, irreducible, essential, and indifferent to what’s wrapped around it. When you remove all your connections, who’s left? You. Enjoying your own company, before anyone else’s, is the bedrock on which all good, sturdy relationships are built.
“All of humanity’s prob…
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