“Man has not learned yet to know how the beauties of aloneness. He is always hankering for some relationship, to be with someone with a friend, with a father, with a wife, with a husband, with a child…with someone.
He has created societies, he has created clubs – the Lion’s club, the Rotary club. He has created parties political, ideological. He has created religions, churches. But the basic need of all is to forget somehow that you are alone. Being associated with so many crowds, you are trying to forget something which in darkness suddenly is remembered that you were born alone, that you will die alone, that whatever you do, you live alone.
Aloneness is something so essential to your being, there is no way to avoid it” OSHO
There is no doubt we are a connected species, the only thing that separates us from the rest of the animals is our ability to communicate with each other, because of this we are constantly looking to connect with other people. In an age of ultra-connectivity where we can’t go more than a couple of minutes without checking our emails, social media, etc craving that constant contact with the world, we tend to forget sometimes to be completely content with being by ourselves.
We all obviously need to create meaningful connections with friends in order to find contentment, family and new people we meet, but I believe that oftentimes we crave that company so much that we forget to get time for ourselves and truly immerse on our thoughts, on the activities that we enjoy that oftentimes are hard to share with someone else and to learn that before being a partner, a son/daughter, friend, etc each of us are unique individuals.
I have never spent a whole lot of time being by myself, since I’m pretty outgoing it’s easy for me to find happiness sharing moments when people are around me, but because of this, I oftentimes find it hard to be by myself and to truly enjoy and find happiness in those moments of solitude.
Looking at your life from a 3rd person perspective
Spending time alone forces you to have intimate conversations with yourself, that are impossible to achieve when we have people around and too many distractions around. A useful method is to look at yourself from a 3rd person perspective and taking time to reflect on your thoughts and actions. This is helpful to make you create a visual of how you will see yourself from the eyes of someone else, how are you acting, what is your posture, how do you treat people etc, if you met a reflection of yourself will you judge it in any way? Will you be inspired by this person, or would there be things that you think this person could change? As you can see, this pretty simple exercise that you can run on your mind at any time will help you create the true image of how you envision yourself to be.
I truly believe that is utterly important for each one of us to take time to truly immerse in ourselves from time to time, to enjoy being alone and to find happiness within ourselves. If we are able to achieve this we would be much more open to enjoying the moments of company, to cherish the beauty of having an interesting conversation with someone else, to enjoy the love from your family and friends. Once we stop craving the attention of having to have someone around us, because often times this is how we are wired to think that we will have the best of time, we end up finding happiness in every moment of life, be it by yourself or with good company.
So put on your headphones and listen to those songs that you know only you like and take a long walk, sing out loud and dance around the streets. Get that book you always wanted to read and devour it like you’ve been telling yourself to do for a long time. Put down your phone for a minute and put some time on all those hobbies you always wanted to work on.
Enjoy your own company as the best friend you’ll ever have as it’s the one that will always be there for you!
How to be happy alone
Another awesome quote from OSHO on Loneliness
Every effort that has been directed to avoid loneliness has failed, and will always fail because it is against the fundamentals of life. What is needed is not something in which you can forget your lonelinessl what is needed is that you become aware of your aloneness – which is a reality.
And it is so beautiful to experience it, to feel it ,because it is your freedom from the crowd, from the other. It is our freedom from the fear of being lonely. Just the word ‘lonely’ immedieately reminds you that it is like a wound: something is needed to fill it. It is a gap, and it hurts. Something needs to be filled into it.
Aloneness the very word does not have the same sense of a wound, of a gap, which has to be filled. Aloneness simply means completeness. You are whole; there is no need of anybody else to complete you.
So try to find out your innermost center where you are always alone. In life, in death wherever you are you will be alone. But it is so full it is not empty – it is so full and so complete and so overflowing with all the juices of life, with all the beauties and benediction of existence, that once you have tasted your aloneness, the pain in the heart will disappear. Instead, a new rhythm of tremendouse swetness, peace, joy, bliss, will be there.
It does not mean that a man who is cenetered in his aloneness, complete in himself, cannot make friends in fact, only he can make friends because now it is no longer a need, it is just sharing. He has so much, he can share.” OSHO
