You are not the only one feeling lonely…

One of my mentees recently shared that he’s feeling really lonely lately.  He lives with his family, has a beautiful partner and many friends, yet in his day to day, even when he is surrounded by others, he feels alone. 

I really understand him.  There are so many moments when I notice that I am feeling disconnected even from my nearest and dearests in my life, for so many different reasons.  Sometimes because our perspectives are different, sometimes because we aren’t managing to communicate well, sometimes just because it feels really hard to connect meaningfully with others when there are so many distractions in our world.  Who has time to really devote to relationships? 

As we addressed his loneliness, we talked really directly about how isolation is part of the design.  This system that is pushing us to consume all of the time wants us to feel lonely. When you feel alone, you often buy stuff to try to fill the void where happiness and connection want to live.

What we really need is community, which is really hard to cultivate in these times of so much distance and polarization.

It is  so unnatural for humans to live alone - and yet so many of us do. To be honest, it feels unnatural to live only in couples or nuclear families when we all know that humans need a wider network.  We are social creatures, and our well being is inherently connected to our relationships.  Anyone who has been in a long term relationship (not only partnership, also friendship) knows that one other person is never going to meet all of your social needs.  We need webs to sustain us.  

So please know that you are not the only person feeling lonely these days.  In fact, loneliness is a plague.

How can you contradict this pervasive loneliness epidemic? 

First of all, recognize how entrenched this epidemic is in our culture, how many ways you are isolated from others, even those you know well. There is no way that this one email is going to reverse the effects of the epidemic, or resolve it. 

However, recognizing that many many people feel just like you do, makes it a bit easier to do something small to contradict cultural isolation. Send a message just to say hello to whomever appears in your heart when you read this.  Or send a message to me. I promise to respond. Tiny steps make a massive difference. It can be really surprising to discover the impact of small actions.