Book Review: The art of being alone

My top 10 learnings from this book

I found out about this book from another one I read called “The Psychology of Money.” The title caught my attention, especially since I’m someone who enjoys alone time and is always pressed for time. I often wish there were more hours in a day.

Even though I already know a few things about the topic, this book surprised me with some new insights.

Here are my top 10 learnings from this book:

1. Only when you learn to love solitude, will you be able to do everything on your own that you expect from people to do for/with you.
2. Romanticising your life means becoming the main character of your life as if your entire day is being recorded.
3. You rely your hope on someone who doesn’t exist. And that’s why, when things don’t fall as per your imagination, you start feeling even more lonely as if you had something but you lost it.
4. Loneliness is not when you don’t have people around. Loneliness occurs when you cannot find yourself inside you. The moment you feel the loss of your real self, that’s when loneliness makes a home inside you.
5. Self-love is about knowing everything about yourself, however ugly or dark or bad your truth is, and accepting yourself with it.
6. If you cannot figure out who you are. figure out who you are not and who you don’t want to be.
7. People aren’t ambulances who can be available to you whenever you want. They have got their own shit to deal with. You cannot expect people to stay forever.
8. You will have to create enough space within your own heart for yourself so that being with yourself feels safe. And being with people is like a bonus, not a short-term pleasure or escape.
9. View your loneliness as a privilege and not as a curse.
10. The catch is to focus on one thing at a time. Choose the one biggest issue you are facing in your life right now. What is the one thing which keeps pulling you down?

Bonus:

1. Make sure you do something every day so that joy doesn’t get left behind. Make your life joyful and not just bearable at the mercy of the weekends.
2. Make your alone time addictive by learning something and doing things that you like. Try something that you always wanted to do.