Solitude

Have you ever observed how you feel when we are alone?  Have you ever observed, in contrast, how different it is when we are with other people?

When we are with other people, we try our best to express ourselves. We reach out and connect with them, but at the same time, we tend to lose ourselves when other people are around. We absorb their energy, just as they absorb ours. We tend to focus on them and think how we can impress them, or how we can win their approval. With this need to be appreciated, we lose ourselves.

That’s why we all need to have time to reconnect with our inner self, to clean out the influence from others, and just be ourselves. When we finally clear all the foreign energy, we can then ask ourselves what’s truly happening in our heart. We all need to be given time to just be ourselves.  When we accept ourselves as we are, joy and love flows through us.

Truth of the matters is, we need both. Yes, interacting with others requires our energy. It forces us to absorb other people’s energy as well, but it also keeps us honest. Too much solitude and we can get lost in our own world which often gets hijacked by our ego. The truth lies somewhere in the middle. When we dance with others, the Observer in us is twice as busy and alert. Yet, it is a fine balance. When we dance too much, the world we interact with gets the better of our SELF.

We live in a society where extroversion is celebrated. Make sure you get enough solitude to catch up with your SELF.  We recharge ourselves in solitude and then are ready to face the world again!

By Christian and Su Zhen