Table for one...

“I used to think the worst thing in life is to end up alone. Its not. The worst thing in life is to end up with people who make you feel all alone”. Robin Williams

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Somewhere between our perceived standing in the world and our actual lived experience is where we exist. It is from this point we interact with others, exchanging views, offering opinion, developing, and growing as individuals. These very skills are interchangeable in every facet of our lives, be that family, school, employment, or friendships. Being able to communicate and offer your perspective on the world is vitally important, because without various perspectives and opinion, life would be boring, predictable, and quiet simply not much fun for anybody.

When we speak about loneliness and isolation, we tend to feel sorry for people, but very often feeling sorry it not what is needed. It would be far more beneficial if we attempted to connect with that individual. Yes, there are people in society who choose isolation to some degree and who are ok in their solitary existence and that is to be respected but, in my own experience even those same people enjoy occasional connections in their life.

Personally, I believe that isolation and loneliness should be considered in terms of having our needs met. What I mean by this, is that we each have needs just as Maslow himself set out. Beginning with the basic and most fundamental, we have physiological needs for things such as air, water, food shelter and sleep. Without these in place, we cannot move to the next stage. As we progress, our needs adjust towards the requirement for safety and stability, thus we want personal security, employment, and health security. Once these are instituted, we can develop the capacity for love and belonging in our lives and this arrives in the form of friendship, intimacy, family, and overall a greater sense of connection. With these in place we each ruminate about respect, status, recognition, and autonomy which are best captured under the title esteem. Finally, every individual has the desire on some level to self-actualise, that is to be the best they can, at whatever they choose. That might be, to be the best partner, friend, or worker. The “what” is irrelevant in every case because we are all so unique and traveling such different paths in life. Yes, very often our paths cross but it should not be that our paths collide and cause disruption to each other, but rather that we interact and exchange some worldly knowledge in the course of the exchange and maybe, if that collision is a difficult one, that we might have enough in place to gather ourselves back together and move forward a wiser person.

It might be difficult for some to appreciate but it is possible to be lonely in the most crowded of places or to feel isolated in your family, your team, or your peer group. So, what I am asking you to do is to consider your connections, is there someone you are leaving out, ignoring, or not listening to? Are you the one left out, ignored or not heard? Could you do something different. Could you reach out, a text, a call, a chat maybe? Remember that each one of us is living a story, we are all on different pages, even different chapters! Maybe some of our stories seem more fiction than truth and that is irreverent because it is our connections and sense of belonging in the world that allow us to exist side by side. Ask yourself are my needs being met but before you do, ask yourself am I helping others meet their need? Because it is only when we become aware of the impact others have on us that we can start to understand the impact we ourselves have on others. I hope that reading this short piece might cause a reaction in you. That it might make you sit back and think for a second, about your life, at home, in work or socially and ask yourself do you have the capacity to relate in a way that allows deeper things to emerge that might allow something more to exist. And as you turn those pages going forward remember that life is a series of once in a lifetime events and perhaps the adulation you seek is misguided.

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Don’t wait, start now.