There’s a lot of confusion between being alone and being lonely. These two things have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Being alone is purely physical; it simply means that no one else is sharing the same space with you. Loneliness, on the other hand, is a feeling. Surely everyone knows the feeling of being surrounded by talking people in a crowded place and feeling completely empty and invisible inside. Conversely, it’s also possible to live completely alone in a quiet house and feel utterly fulfilled, connected, and whole.
Of course, it took time for me to learn to value myself. In the first few months of living alone, I found the silence oppressive and uncomfortable. It was too quiet, unfamiliar, and a little frightening, as I had to confront my own thoughts undisturbed. But over time, I discovered a wonderful truth: peace is found in silence. And when I began to embrace the silence instead of running away from it, everything changed. The silence became a place of solace, no longer a desert of loneliness.
As research in environmental psychology and mental health shows, our environment and how we spend our time in it have a tremendous impact on our emotional resilience. To turn solitude into an advantage, I developed a lifestyle based on four key principles.
