Hello everyone!
I’m back again! This post is kind of going to be about something close to my heart that I think is not talked about as much as it should be.
The difference between being alone and lonely.
Growing up, if you say that you’re lonely, most people will instantly say back to you that you are not alone. But, being alone and feeling lonely are two totally different things and really, there can be some correlations between them, but not always. Definitely not often enough to have this immediate mental correlation that most people have.
I’m not ashamed to admit that I feel lonely often even when I am surrounded by people. Feeling lonely is an emotion that we all feel at some point. In a world of billions of people, we can feel as lonely as possible. Truth be told, I don’t know why this is. Loneliness is so much more than being alone physically. There have been times where I was at work around multiple people and yet I also felt like I was the only person there. This contradiction is strange in that it is often not thought about.
I mean truly, when was the last time you felt lonely? Yesterday? A week ago? Months ago?
Why do I feel lonely even when I’m surrounded by people?
In reality, we can ask ourselves these questions for an eternity if we wanted to, and yet, we would never find an answer. The human mind is so complicated that even these seemingly simple questions can make us feel like we’re in the midst of a quarter life crisis. Or even worse, an existential crisis!
But the main reason I’m even writing this to begin with is to remind people of how important it is to understand the difference between being alone and feeling lonely.
Without true understanding, it can feel like you’re being judged and ridiculed for feeling a normal human emotion.
The scariest thing about being human is being judged for feeling emotional. Society has created a concept that if you’re sad, you’re automatically depressed or the opposite happens where there is not enough understanding when it comes to being depressed. Unfortunately, there is no true way to help people through feeling lonely without making an immediate assumption. But even if there is an assumption, I think the main thing is to just be willing to listen. Pushing your opinion of how the person shouldn’t be lonely is actually not helpful at all even when there are good intentions behind it.
So, that being said, I hope that this post has helped someone! I mean, it’s not much but this topic is so so important to face!
Thank you for reading! Let me know in the comments what you think of this topic!
That Savannah Life 