Lonliness

The other day someone was mentioning to me that they were lonely. I told them loneliness is foreign to me. I do not know what loneliness is. I like being alone. I like being in the company of myself . Sometimes I can not wait to go to bed to have some quietness and stillness and lay by myself and just be.

I am surrounded by friends, so I never feel "alone". I have hobbies that give me fulfillment and bring me joy. If I ever feel lonely, I just have to pick up the phone or get on the computer and chat to a friend and the feeling disappears. I looked up the meaning of loneliness on wikpedia and this is what I found "Loneliness is an emotional state in which a person experiences a powerful feeling of emptiness and isolation."

I told the person the more you learn to love yourself, the less lonely you will be. They did not understand that and said all they needed was a wife or a girlfriend and they would not be lonely. I told them that is not true; you can be in a crowd of people and be lonely or you can be completely alone and be quite content. Loneliness is a state of mind, a way of feeling, I do not think it is contingent on someone else being there to fill an emotional state from within.

I realized that the world is full of lonely people. I find that lonely people tend to isolate themselves from relationships that require emotional exposure. I have felt lonely before, like something was missing, but thankfully for me those moments are few and far between. One of the moments I feel "lonely" is my birthday and Christmas morning. I generally feel lonely because my mother is not there, and it is a feeling of something missing. However, it is brief, and it only lasts a few minutes. It is not a pleasant feeling at all, and I would hate to deal with that on a regular basis.

There are many ways to escape being lonely; However they do require some effort:

keep and maintain personal friendships

make the effort to keep in touch with people regularly

take up a hobby that you like

find people with common interests and surround yourself with them

volunteer ~~ help someone else

These are the ways that I have overcome loneliness, which really is just isolation. If people would learn to connect to others I feel the whole world would be a lot less lonely.