Learning To Be Alone

Being alone isn’t necessarily a weakness; it can be a sign of strength. A person who has learned to find and value himself or herself in solitude has also overcome many fears. They have understood that they do not need to rely on another person to be happy, even if they choose to share their happiness with someone else eventually. This person has learned to rely on themselves and not on others for their sense of identity. They are much more than a wife or a husband, a son or a daughter, a friend of somebody, or a partner of somebody.This person knows who they are because they have dared to go down into the depths of their emotions and their psyche, accepting both personal virtues and defects, seeking and achieving a spiritual connection with their “self.” If you fear being alone, this “fear“ will dominate your decisions and cause you to act against your real desire. It will lead you to accept being with people that you don’t really want to be with and jump from one relationship to another just to avoid being alone. You will continue friendships that leave you nothing and will violate your own principles and objectives just to avoid solitude.  Your feelings of weakness and cowardice will debilitate your will because you have not overcome your worst enemy, the one that lies within you. The irony of it is that the enemy you avoid follows you like a shadow, in every waking and sleeping moment. Nevertheless, if you do take advantage of the moments in life when you find yourself alone to investigate and scrutinize your inner self, you will demonstrate the courage to face your emotions and your weaknesses, and you will overcome the accuser, thus accepting yourself as you are, without the need to attach yourself to anything or anyone. You will value yourself, not for what you have or who you are with, but rather because of who you are from within. After many long struggles with your shadows and countless meaningful moments of solitude, you will know who you are and who you are not, and you will be able to let go of the external labels that define you and the multiple masks under which your “self” hides. Use your masks as you like, they are useful in life, but know that you are not them. When you accept yourself in weakness and in strength, you will no longer have to defend or justify yourself, or act to please others.  This does not mean debility; the skilled warrior contains his strength within himself, knows his Aquilles’ weak ankle, and does not need to prove himself. He knows who he is and what he is capable of. He is, and that “IS” does not depend on anything or anyone. It is his truth – a force that lies beyond the reach of the world, untouchable, unbreakable because it is internal, not external. Dare to know yourself, do not flee from your condition, find your internal value, and learn to conquer that force within you, which is you!