So go ahead and conquer the world. Make a lot of friends. Fall in love with a lot of people. But most importantly, always be in love with the idea of your individual self.
There is just no stressing enough how important it is for a person to learn that being alone is okay; it’s something that you shouldn’t be afraid of. You shouldn’t be ashamed of being alone. You have to learn how to embrace solitude. You have to be okay with taking yourself out on adventures and dinner dates. You have to be okay with being in a crowded room full of people you don’t know. Remember that you must always learn to love yourself, and when you do love yourself, being alone isn’t going to be as bad as most people would make it out to be. And you really have to learn how to love yourself because at the end of it all, you’re the only one you can really rely on in this world.
The big issue with modern times is that we are all so quick to think that we have to lose ourselves in order to find relationships. We don’t. We never have. And we never will. We never have to give up our individual sense of self just for another person to fall in love with us. On the contrary, we have to love ourselves if we are ever going to convince another person to fall in love with us. We can’t function in a relationship if we make the relationship our entire life. We need to be able to live a meaningful and fulfilling life as an individual before we can have an enriching and affectionate relationship with another person.
A lot of us are guilty of being so engrossed in trying to find our soulmates. We tend to focus a lot of our energies into finding that one person with whom we can share and build a life. We try so hard to surround ourselves with a huge group of friends who would have our backs and keep us company whenever we need them to. But when we fail in our search for our soulmate, we end up feeling totally unwanted and unloved. Whenever our friends choose to prioritize other things in their lives over us, we feel a sense of detachment and loneliness. We forget that there was one person all along that you have been neglecting this whole time: you. You would never deprioritize yourself. You would never fail to make time for yourself. You should never fail to love yourself. You should learn that it’s okay to be alone.
So go ahead and see a movie by yourself. Go watch that film that you’ve been wanting to see but your friends were never interested in. Go ahead and visit that brand new restaurant in your neighborhood that serves that weird dish that only you want to try. Head out and walk on over to a local art gallery and immerse yourself in culture and see how these works of art impact your own life. Take some time to just sit down and reflect on your life and how you are going about your own journey in this world. Enrich your brain by filling it with fulfilling ideas. Read the best and the worst books that you can get your hands on. Listen to all the music that you can fit into your phone as you take long walks through your city. Take the time to just step outside and feel the sunlight on your skin. Feel the world energize you and give you the strength that you need to carry on by yourself. Remember that growth and development is always going to be a solo process. Yes, other people can help keep us on the path to progress. But ultimately, the decision to grow and to mature still lies with us. We are the ones who make a conscious choice every day to be a better person. No one else could possibly ever make that choice for us. While it’s important to heed the advice and opinions of other people, it’s always more important to live up to the standards that you set for yourself.
Remember that while it can be beautiful to find comfort in the people you love most in the world, the primary source of comfort in your life should always be yourself. People will walk into your life and they might leave. But you, you are the one who is going to be in it for the long haul. You will be there when you are at your highest, and you are the one who is going to have to pick yourself up when you are at your lowest. You can get so caught up relying on the presence of other people in your life, you might end up forgetting how to appreciate yourself when you’re alone.
So go ahead and conquer the world. Make a lot of friends. Fall in love with a lot of people. But most importantly, always be in love with the idea of your individual self.
