Loneliness is just a mindset. We are never lonely when we have developed good habits to lead our life and disciplined ourselves. For a disciplined living we can build TODO lists for our own and prioritise our self-owned tasks. We need to verify our DONE list too at regular intervals and make a note of all backlogs. To lead is to assign tasks yourself in sync with your life goals and not to wait for something to be assigned to you. After all it’s your life and you need to take charge.
Sometimes we find loneliness too boring and at times we feel it like a blessing. We want to complete few pending tasks and this is the best time as we can’t achieve great results among a crowd. You just want to be with you and in the presence of God as your guardian. None other.
I often feel lonely in the absence of friends and family around me. This is a common case with many of us who don’t find many options to choose from rather than staying at a distant place away from our loved ones. Most of the time we impose such restrictions on us to meet our financial needs. And all this at the cost of our happiness. We often talk to our own when we don’t find anybody around to express ourselves. We indulge in watching TV, playing games and in my case I prefer reading & writing. Many have their own habits as per choice.
What makes you happy? Is it your relationship with others, your bank balance or both? There is no common consensus but in most cases people talk about money as their prime source of happiness.
Our mind from our childhood was conditioned to earn more money for a better living and successful relationships. We are even told to study hard and be on top of all in competition to be more successful and make more wealth. Money even breaks relationships but people still prefer money over relationships.
The thought process is like this – I must do a good job and make a lot of money to secure my future for a better living. We are in no mood to do a compromise even when we can get a less lucrative job at our hometown. Our only motivation is money and a high class society. And we believe we can chase our dream only when we work with topnotch MNCs who can offer us a fat paycheck.
Have you ever felt yourself isolated even when you are among people – say your coworkers or among a group of friends on a weekend? If your answer is yes you must have a solid reason for that. In my case it used to be so on many occasions few years back but not anymore. I will tell you my reason some other time. You write and share your story with me.
We need to be truthful to our own first. We should not always try to please others and lead a false life claiming something I have sacrificed for her/him. This is purely self betrayal. We can’t please everyone in our life and there is no need to try that too. You can have a fulfilling life if you are at peace with others as much as with your own. An agitated mind can’t build fruitful relationships. Loneliness disappear with strong relationships. You can build that with people, environment (plants & animals) and also with the books you like. A good bookshelf is like a company of friends.
We should not blame anyone for a failed relationship. It’s up to us how to safeguard a relationship. We can find hundreds of ways to stay in touch with people we want in our life. The real question is our level of interest and commitment. We must be in a position to build an environment of trust, respect and friendship with all. Few relationship born and die with our mind because of the mind games we play with people. Timely action can save these relationships to last longer.
People in our lives influence our behaviour. We can always stay positive in a company of like minded people. This is the only challenge I feel. Yes, it’s important to build a circle of like minded people. They may not necessarily belong to our family only. I make friends even among strangers where I find opportunity to learn and share.
Life is stressful when we fail to find the right people in our life. Our life should be rich with people who stand for us at the time of need. They need not always support us but we must like them even for a criticism. They are always there to guide us do better. A genuine criticism from a friend worth much more than a false praise of an acquaintance.
Most of our connection at any social media like Facebook are just there to make us feel their presence by their posts. They hardly talk to us or message us. I used to receive a reply only when I initiate the communication. This is no generalisation but people prefer to stay among an elite group and for this very reason they use social networks as a medium of communication. They want to tell the world what they are up to. This is what people like these days.
I find very few initiate a call and ever try to know our well being.
I don’t say they are false connections as I never set any expectation from anyone. I believe in what I learn from others and what best I can do to all.
Ego comes into play with few on the way to effective communication. This is my recent experience when we planned and had a get together of our engineering batch mates after ten years. Few asked the same question to me you never called us except chatting over Facebook on few occasions. I really had little to explain but I could accept myself and able to keep in touch better now.
I tried and changed the context of our discussion to make it more humorous and less emotional. I told like it’s late I agree but I made it finally and happy to see you all together again after such a long gap. We had family get together with few friends during their stay at our hometown. It was a nice experience.
I felt good when thanked by others to plan this get together and taking the initiative. This thought was in my mind long back but struck me again when I started using WhatsApp and learn about WhatsApp groups. I was going through my photo album and this ideas came to mind. I found myself promptly in action the very next moment and formed a group without any delay. I had a firm belief I could find many of our friends again.
I remembered those golden days at college and felt sad how many of our friends I could keep in touch till date. Is not it possible to have a get together again? I reached out to few at Facebook and WhatsApp to share my thoughts. I formed a WhatsApp group and added those ten of our friends I was in touch. I made them all admin in the group. My thoughts got shape and our chain worked well. To my surprise we found 50 + people in the group in a weeks time from all our connection of friends who added others to the group. I found conversations day and night for first few days as if it is non stoppable now. Many played their blame game well on others for not keeping in touch so long.
This group is quite active even today after many months of its birth. Thanks to our NRI friends who keep us vigilant at times during night till late hours. I felt quite happy after knowing about successful pursuits of many of our friends. There are few millionaires now in the group by their effort and one among us recently joined the billionaire club by his net worth.
Everyone question us why did we stop calling others over phone? Well, they don’t feel good if you question back the same and I never asked that. We need to be silent when charged by others and wait for our turn to come. The more you listen others the better you can communicate your views and this is the rule in communication. Never disrupt others speaking and have respect for their views.
A relationship can tarnish if we set an expectation and fail to get expected results. I have freed myself from these emotions. I realised a simple fact quite late but have good understanding now. Everybody has their own journey of life. We may not be well aware of their journey and we should not question others with limited information. We only know about our own journey that the other person doesn’t know.
Let’s keep away with too many doubts in mind and feel happy for what we get as a result of our relationship. Your happiness graph can have a steeply upward curve if you can feel equally happy with the success and happiness of others as that of your own.
