The Importance of Spending Time Alone
Whether you choose to be by yourself or not, spending time alone can be a difficult thing to do and appreciate in the moment. However, it is a very valuable thing to do for yourself in the long term. You are not always going to have days when your family will be there to pick up the phone right when you need them to and you are not going to have days filled with social outings with your best friends. Sometimes, you are going to have days when you sit in your room and spend time with yourself and do absolutely nothing.
It is during this time that you learn the most about yourself; the person you were, the person you are, and the person you want to become. If you are sitting quietly in your room or in the middle of the morning coffee fix line in a cafe, you will be able to act as a witness to the world around you and might even see how little pieces of life are stitched together in these small, but very significant moments.
Something that might serve to be very beneficial in spending time alone is by cutting out the outside world, intentionally focus on yourself and your needs. You can even do this in a crowded room. Take yourself out to eat, wander through the city streets, focus on what you see and do that isn’t overshadowed by conversations that you would probably be having if someone was with you. You’ll find out things about yourself that you never really knew like the way you write your name when you aren’t stressed out or the way your blankets smell like your home when you wrap it around you. You’ll start to realize that you enjoy the company of yourself, that being alone is not such a bad thing after all, and that you may have to turn down a few social outings to reconnect and find yourself again.