Loneliness is the Fuel for Success
So Hold Your Head Up High
I am a lonely person. I have always been and I always will be from what I can tell.
How lonely am I? I read every spam and junk email. I accept every friend request on Facebook and still have about 40 friends. I talk to telemarketers and go on to explain at great length why I cannot afford to apply for a personal loan right at this moment. I donate my blood whenever there is a blood drive coming to my neighborhood because they always call me and even leave kind voicemails. When I am texting, I respond to every comment and react to it by sending myriad of emoticons and GIFs. My text box is almost always the very last one left unanswered in the thread to signal the end of the conversation for the day.
Just off the top of my head, there are many good reasons why I am the way I am. You can blame that on my innate introverted tendencies that I have been blessed with, possibly further exacerbated by my even more introverted older brother who would closely watch my manners as a child in public, such as in a playground or in local grocery stores; on my personal background - growing up as a shy, timid Asian immigrant who could barely speak a word of English, certainly affected my development and growth during those formidable years as a pre-teen and a teen. As an adult, awkward social encounters, such as my inability to say "no" to people without unintentionally offending them first or even my painfully boring choice of conversation topics, such as how to be a better person or how to accomplish lifelong goals at office parties and during the 30-minute lunch breaks, certainly did not turn me into an overnight success or a sensational influencer. My childlike delight in verbalizing what I perceive to be good and beneficial to those who were kind enough to listen and my undisguised, brutal honesty in pursuit of ever-escaping truth did nothing to build solid relationships. To make matters worse, I was keenly aware of the guaranteed likelihood of making others feel uncomfortable or, even worse, bored to death when they were around me.
However, even for lonely people like me, life goes on and they graduate, they get a job, they get married and they hit all the important milestones in life, although the transitional phase could have been less painful and less awkward and more filled with celebratory gatherings with lots of hugs and kisses. But, still...
Now that I have shown you my curriculum vitae and proven to you how much of a lonely person I am, as a veteran and a professional loner, I can share with you why being alone and actually going through the pain of being lonely is the perfect raw material that you need to transform it into tangible rewards, such as in increasing your earning potentials and diversifying your skill sets.
1. Nobody Can Think for You But You and You Alone: Studying requires thinking. Planning requires thinking. Reading requires thinking. Writing requires thinking. Learning new skills requires thinking. Memorizing requires thinking. And thinking is your consciousness trying to make sense of the world. And the consciousness works best when it is left alone.
2. The Sense of Loneliness Amplifies Your Creativity and Enhances Concentration: Not just being alone but feeling the sense of loneliness makes you vulnerable and desperate. Vulnerability and desperation combined can create a powerful force, enough motivation to reach for something that you would not dare try pushing yourself.
3. And Then... Do Not Underestimate the Power of Boredom: When you are bored with your life, we, the thinking animals, will harness our every ounce of power to create distraction and to employ our wandering mind when we are alone.
Today is Thanksgiving Day. For those who are friendless, estranged from your loved ones and feeling especially lonely, I dedicate this post for you and for you alone.
About the Creator
Ji Na Khananisho
A wife, a daughter, a sister, a friend, a colleague and an aspiring author. Adore David Foster Wallace, Charlotte Bronte, Thomas Hardy and Khaled Hosseini. And lastly, I am the happiest logophile and logomaniac you will ever meet.
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