JOIN USGabriel Garcia Marquez would have probably needed to change the title of One Hundred Years of Solitude if his novel was set five decades later. Being alone in a room filled with people is easy enough, but getting some time away from everyone is not as simple as it seems.
There hardly seems to be a minute anymore where there’s no email to be checked, chat message to be replied to or social media platform to go through. Never mind that the chances of gaining something positive through any of the above are as remote as your trek to the Himalayan Base Camp alone.
There’s a certain buzz that comes with staying busy. When you hit the ground running as soon as you wake up each morning, there are emails to reply to, meetings to attend, snack boxes to be packed, children to be sent off to school, and dogs to be fed. It’s certainly fitting if you’ve managed to meet friends for brunch, set up meetings for two weeks ahead, updated your status on where you’re going to dinner and finished the laundry all before you hit the sack exhausted but relieved you’ve accomplished so much.
However, as Prathima Fernandes, assistant general manager at an ITeS firm, says, “It’s great to be so busy and have such a fulfilling life, but every once in a while it’s nice to slow down. To not have to be somebody for someone, someone’s mother, wife, sister, or daughter – to just be me for a bit, drink a cup of coffee and read a book or even sit in silence. Me-time is like yoga for a stressed-out mind.”
Out in the open
The 21st century has brought with it a lot of wonderful things and getting people closer has been one of them. Every website, every friend, every job has people who know people who know you, or have something in common, and your chances of walking into a room unnoticed are getting smaller and smaller. Google Glass might have ceased production two years ago, but there is an updated version in the offing soon, apparently. How often will you be able to say ‘hello’ then, without looking at a person’s glasses to see if a red light is blinking, to wonder if you’re being recorded or your social media profile
accessed? Privacy, as we know, it is soon going to be a thing of the past.
As Oscar Wilde said, way before the smart phone was even imagined, “I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not to be defined by another person.” It’s not so much as withdrawing from people and places, but getting away from a world with millions of voices that probably have nothing interesting to say anyway for a little bit.
The importance of ‘me-time’ has probably diminished in our rush to achieve everything we’ve set out to do and more. What we don’t realise is that it’s in the rush of everyday that we forget the things most important to us.
Whether it’s our family, the gym or a book we’ve been dying to read, there’s a certain amount of guilt associated with not running ourselves aground with obligations that we deem more important than ourselves.
While each of us assumes our success is based solely on our accomplishments, what we omit is that success is also about being comfortable enough in our own skin and understanding that the grass is not actually greener on the other side. There’s a certain level of contentment and satisfaction that self-sufficiency affords and is irreplaceable in spite of the dozen hangers-on at a bar.
In an ever-changing culture where everyone enjoys the company of high-energy people and the ‘weird’ one is the person who prefers to stay home alone, it’s only getting more difficult to understand that silence is actually a good thing. It’s more difficult to convince ourselves of the need to go offline for a while without being scared of what we might find, to spend time alone without getting depressed about ourselves.
Interestingly enough, the most productive people are the ones who actually take time off. The lack of distractions makes for a more productive hour, aside from being rejuvenating, resulting in self-resilience that negates the need for constant approval from everybody else. Even if you’re just getting time away from your children, you’re bound to have a lot more patience with them when you’re
reunited. Relationships are easier and you’ll often find that even the dullest of jobs get tackled faster once you’ve had a bit of time to introspect away from the regular humdrum.
Solitude is a little bit like a vacation away from the demands of daily living. A little bit of privacy has never hurt anyone and an evening alone in front of the television is probably better than another consecutive evening partying. Often, an unrelenting schedule leaves us no time to remember who we are or where we come from.
Take a moment to stop, take time to smell the roses and just breathe, and all of a sudden you’ll find yourself more cheerful and refreshed, ready to take on the world once more.
Schedule
Clearly making that time for yourself is actually easier than you think. Even if you wouldn’t accept it, a half hour at the gym will not have the markets collapsing because of your absence in front of a screen. If you have to set an alarm to wake up just a little earlier for a cup of tea with the news by yourself, it’s probably worth it. Whether it’s a hobby, a walk outdoors, or just some time in silence watching the sun come up over an otherwise sleeping city, whatever you do, a little time set apart for yourself without interruption is time well spent.
Switch off
Quite literally, as it were, switch off from the rest of the planet. Shut down that laptop and stop checking those messages on your phone. Everyone’s most creative moments are usually alone. John Updike, Pulitzer–winning author of over 51 books, attributes his astonishing productivity to a schedule that honours empty time. As he explains, “Ideally, much of my day should be, in a strict sense, idle, for it is often in idle moments that real inspiration comes.” If time spent alone could have us writing award-winning stories, what then is stopping us?
Simply enjoy your time alone
Understand that it’s you who accounts for your self-esteem and not anybody else. Your feeling of self-worth and satisfaction is not something any of your friends or colleagues can contribute to. Understand that you are as important as everybody else in your life, and that you deserve time to yourself. You are, quite simply, the best. While you may not feel better than all the rest at first, not spending your ‘me-time’ in competition with anyone or not pushing yourself towards a deadline will soon find you enjoying who you are much more. There’s no better time to take stock, accept who you’ve become and that things are what they are for a reason.