Many people have this great fear of being alone. They think that if they are alone, they
are lonely. They think that others
will look at them, judge them, and make fun of them, and one day they will die
lonely and miserable. They don’t
understand that being alone and being lonely are completely different
things.
This week’s “How I Met Your Mother” episode was on this
topic. If you know the show Ted,
the main character has this daydream about his 4 best friends who are married
to each other (so he is kind of the 5th wheel). He is sitting in the bar alone staring
at a beer and a ticket to a show.
At the end he talks about how lonely and alone he is. I have watched the whole show and I know
that he is not lonely or alone. He
has great friends who he is with every day, but he is just depressed because he
has not found a wife yet. And that
is societies definition of alone.
I say fuck that. Just
because he doesn’t have a wife or a girlfriend does not mean he is alone. In fact, its an opportunity to embrace
being by yourself, which many people do not take advantage of.
I love to do things alone or on my own, as I like to put it. I went to college alone, I went abroad
to Barcelona alone, and I went to Israel alone. You know what I learned? I learned how to figure things out
for myself and solve my own problems, I learned who I really am, and I learned
that it is extremely important to do things on your own. I could have done all of these things
with my best friends but I chose not to and I couldn’t be happier with the way
things turned out.
I am extremely good at doing things and figuring things out
on my own. When I go to visit a
friend and I don’t know anything about the place, I usually don’t learn as much
as I do when I don’t visit someone.
When I visit friends they show me around and take me places but if I am
not the one figuring it out, then I won’t be able to do the same thing next
time. However, if I am the one
doing the research and figuring out how to get places and finding the
restaurants I learn so much more and if I want to go back to that place I can
easily retrace my steps and figure out what to do. I also like to be in control of directions and schedules. When I travel with people I usually
take the lead on directions and people have told me that they feel safe when I
am directing them because they trust me.
When I am by myself, I am not really by myself, but I am
with the coolest person I know.
One thing I lacked when I was younger was a lot of self-confidence. But as I have grown up I have become
much more independent and confident in my decisions and myself. I am the most interesting person I
know. I listen to the music I
want, travel where I want, eat what I want, and do whatever I want, whenever I
want. I also really enjoy meeting
new people on my own. Not because
I can make up some bullshit story and be someone I am not because I can. I like meeting new people on my own
because I do in fact think other people are interesting, but I can tell people really
like me for me, and not for the people I am with. They find my life interesting and think I am mature and I
think I do a great job of changing peoples perspectives of Americans.
I try to encourage people to do things on their own. To embrace their freedom and enjoy it
while it lasts. Before we know it,
that time we had to ourselves will soon be going to our pets, our kids, our
jobs, and our wives/husbands.
Everyone should be able to go to a bar or travel without anyone else and
meet some cool people. That is actually
where I might have met some of the coolest people I have ever met…some of whom
I don’t even know their names. But
they have been very interesting to talk to, and inspiring, and after we finished
talking we said bye, and that was it.
