During my entire childhood, I was a loner. There could be a range of reasons for a loner to be so; as for me, I always knew that I was different and that no one was ever going to understand me, so I went being on my own. For a small child, feeling such a way about herself was quite a terrible thing. By the time I reached somewhere between my teenage and early 20s, I grew up to be an insecure girl, desperately craving acceptance and love. And, it went on like that until I met a bunch of people who seemed to be just as insane as I thought I was. Those people went on to become the family that I chose for myself – my best friends!
Being a loner is not a problem until and unless you do not enjoy being one. I chose to stay aloof because I considered myself a misfit in my environment, without even knowing my worth. For a lot of people like me who find it hard to be out there, being a loner is toxic. This lot is *sad loners*. However, there is another lot of people out there for whom being a loner is a lifestyle. I call this lot *happy loners*. The happy loners often go on to become the most intellectual people in the world as solitude helps them find the purpose of their life. The only difference between both the lots is that the former ones lack self-love while the latter ones are full of self-love. By being on their own, the later ones tend to find their inner self and discover their untapped potential.
In a short period, with the support and love from my friends and family, I traveled a journey from being a sad loner to a happy loner.
Finding Self Worth
Your family and friends have a crucial role in helping you find self-worth. I’m grateful to have a family and a group of friends who unknowingly offered their support by loving me and making me feel valued. They held my back at the right time.
When I found love and support from my family and friends, I found my worth, and soon I fell in love with the person I was. Slowly but steadily, I started becoming more and more secure about myself. And once I found self-worth, I accepted myself with an open heart, and guess what, I started attracting my kind of people who loved me for what I was. Once you value yourself, you fall in love with your uniqueness.
Over time, I have become open to challenges that have the potential to carve out a better version of mine. One such challenge helped me become more aware of the concept of solitude. Here is an account of the challenge that made me the happiest loner ever:
Becoming a Happy Loner: I took a One-Month Social Media Detoxing Challenge (And I completed it successfully!)
After 23 years of suffering, I finally found myself in a better place in life (emotionally). By the end of the year 2019, I became such an emotionally secure person that I took one of the biggest challenges I had known. One of my close friends told me that he was going to start his New Year with a One-Month Social Media Detoxing Challenge. In the times when people seemed more connected on Facebook than in reality, social media detoxing was a thing that I could never imagine myself completing.
He insisted me to take the challenge, and after giving a lot of thinking to it, I agreed. We both went on a one-month social media detoxing, meaning that we were not allowed to chat with anyone or scroll down any of the social media apps in spare time. We deleted Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp (the only social media apps that we used back then) for one month. We decided to discover what else we could do in the time that we formerly used to waste in unproductive scrolling and unnecessary chatting. And guess what! Now, spending time alone was not torture to me, but one of the most enjoyable ways to spend my time.
During the detoxing, I read a whole lot of books, discovered music that I had never heard before, and became happier without talking to anybody. I became more productive at work than I was ever, and most importantly, I found peace in my own company. I discovered that indulging in solitude and being away from all the toxicity and unproductive habits were great ways to learn about my mind, body, and soul. Yet again in my life, I became a loner, but this time, a loner who could spend a whole month all by herself without being miserable about it, in fact exploring new things about herself, and loving herself even more. There was a sense of freedom that I felt after I completed this challenge, that I was enough for myself, that I was free of attachment.
Realizing that I never needed to fit in!
I grew up with the fear of not fitting in, but as I started the journey of self-love, my perception of society transformed altogether. Funny how even today I see myself as a total misfit, but not because I am not enough, but because I don’t need to fit in. There is no perfect mold that everyone can fit in, we are all unique, and that’s the beauty. So, don’t be a loner with the fear in your heart that you won’t fit in. Be a loner to embrace your uniqueness.