[acb-hsp] Being Alone vs. Interdependence

Tue Aug 14 13:07:00 EDT 2012

Andy: I agree that true interdependence is preferable over independent  
living.  Both take effort, however.  The end result of the efforts  made to 
nurture interdependent relationships are well worth it.  Perhaps  this is an 
important goal for all of us to achieve. Signed, Mary  Morrow-Farrell

In a message dated 8/13/2012 2:48:47 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
Andrew.Baracco at va.gov writes:

I  have lived alone, and I have lived with either a wife or significant  
other.  I'll take living with another any time over living  alone. 
Andy 

From:  acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org [mailto:acb-hsp-bounces at acb.org] On Behalf 
Of  Mmorrowfarrell at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, August 11, 2012 7:36  AM
To: acb-hsp at acb.org
Subject: [acb-hsp] Being  Alone

In my  experience and hence in my opinion everyone stands alone.  Even if 
you  have been in a relationship for a very long time you are still 
ultimately  alone.  We must all rely on ourselves in the end. This is my opinion.  
Signed, Mary Morrow-Farrell, Philadelphia PA.

In a  message dated 8/11/2012 10:06:40 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, 
_paltschul at centurytel.net_ (mailto:paltschul at centurytel.net)   writes:

The  Trials of Being Alone After a Big Change in Your Life
Salon By  Tracy Clark-Flory August 6, 2012
I recently went through a  breakup.  It was the worst -- they 
always are -- but as I wrestled  with sadness over the end of the 
relationship, another perplexing  challenge arose: how to be 
alone.
I've been through a million  -- OK, three -- breakups before.  
I've spent plenty of time single  in between.  I thought I'd be 
good at this alone thing by  now.  I'm an only child, for crying 
out loud.  Instead, on the  heels of another split, I'm amazed at 
how difficult just being by myself  can be.  I have friends -- 
they are wonderful -- but I feel a  suffocating solitude at the 
end of the night, in the morning or at any  moment of the day that 
isn't scheduled with distraction.  It wasn't  this way when I was 
coupled.  Just the knowledge that I had "a  person" to call my own 
(even though I know in my bones that you can  never truly call 
another person "your own") was a comfort; that  knowledge itself 
was a constant companion.
How does one become  good at being alone? This question might be 
uniquely poignant for those  of us fresh out of a breakup, or 
still in our 20's, but it's a question  people confront at all 
stages of life and for all sorts of reasons,  whether it's a big 
move to a new city, an unexpected death, a divorce or  any 
countless number of things that life can throw your way.  And  
regardless of your romantic status or friend count, it's nice to 
be  capable of enjoying a movie or dinner alone.  A friend told me 
a  story about an acquaintance who is married with kids: She has a 
meltdown  whenever her family goes out of town; she doesn't know 
what to do with  herself.
So, I decided to seek out the world's wisdom on how to be  
alone.  (As I tweeted earlier this week, "One of my favorite  
things about being a journo? Being able to take my own burning  
questions to experts under the pretense of public service.") In  
terms of romantic aloneness, Anna David seemed like a good first  
stop: She wrote the memoir "Falling for Me: How I Hung Curtains,  
Learned to Cook, Traveled to Seville, and Fell in Love," and  
understands the ache of singlehood all too well.  "I spent so  
much time where everything was filtered through this lens of `but  
I'm alone.` And I was haunted by the thought, `I'm going to be 
alone  forever,`" she says.
It took a long time to move past that  fear.
In fact, it took setting out to write a book about bettering  
herself in order to land a man.  "The idea I pitched Harper  
Collins was very much `Let me get totally perfect so that I can 
find  the perfect guy to fall in love with me and the last chapter 
will be  about how in love we areea`"b she says, but none of that 
happened.   While the book ultimately delivers a happier message 
of self-love, she  privately felt like a failure for still being 
single.  Shortly  thereafter, though, she "bottomed out" in a 
relationship where she says,  "I just got crazy and obsessive and 
I started to believe ...  it's  this guy or a lifetime of eating 
dinner with my cat." Either through the  writing of the book or 
that final relationship disaster, she says, "I  basically realized 
that it was the old cliche: that no guy was ever  going to make me 
happy," she says.  "I was buying into this age-old  fairy tale 
that at the end of the movie you end up with a  guy."
In my search for wisdom on spending time alone, regardless  of 
relationship status, I quickly found that very few experts want  
to talk about being alone; they'd rather talk about how to not be  
alone.  Judy Ford, the author of "Single: The Art of Being  
Satisfied, Fulfilled and Independent," is a rare exception to 
that:  "We are born alone and die alone, and deep within our souls 
we live  alone," she tells me in an email, instantly invoking 
those universal  truths that hurt the most.  "No one else ever 
abides in our  skin.  If we haven't yet come to terms with this 
ultimate truth, we  are scared out of our minds to be alone." She 
adds, "The fear of public  speaking is a mere tickle in comparison 
to the seismic ripples of horror  that reverberate through the 
heart when faced with spending the weekend  alone," says Ford.  
"People are more courageous about going to the  dentist than they 
are about eating in a restaurant alone." That's true  for young as 
well as old: Many seniors feel lonely "because they have  not 
developed their inner life," she says.
Her practical tips  for conquering solitude are to get creative 
("creativity is the cure of  loneliness"), push yourself to "do 
something you have never done before"  (like taking yourself out 
to dinner), admit your loneliness to others  ("you might be 
surprised that they feel lonely too"), "get cozy with the  gaps," 
those empty spaces in between plans, and remind yourself,  
"Loneliness is not going to kill me." These aren't easy fixes -- 
and  may induce eye-rolls from self-help haters -- but they're 
crucial to  happiness, she argues: "To experience wholeness, first 
we experience the  void."
Speaking of happiness, Gretchen Rubin wrote the book on it  -- 
she's the author of the New York Times bestseller "The Happiness  
Project" -- and has a slightly different take.  "Ancient  
philosophers and contemporary scientists agree that probably the 
key  to happiness is strong relationships with other people," she 
says.   "You need to feel like you have intimate long-lasting 
relationships, you  need to feel like you belong, you need to feel 
like you can get support  and give support." Her emphasis isn't on 
learning to be happy alone, but  rather recognizing what level of 
social interaction makes you happiest  -- and it's different for 
everyone: "Maybe you don't have a sweetheart,  but being around a 
lot of other people might make you feel happier even  if you wish 
you had that," she tells me.
"I think people  sometimes aren't very aware of how much they 
need to be around other  people." As for making the most of 
whatever degree of aloneness that you  have -- whether it's being 
a bachelor or living in a new town with no  friends -- she says, 
"You don't wait for circumstances to change in  order to have the 
life that you want.
If you want to go to  France, don't think, `Oh, as soon as I 
have a boyfriend I'll go to  France` or `As soon as I get married 
I'll fix up my apartment.` Have the  life that you want as much as 
you can now." That's instead of putting  your life on hold, or 
living in ignorance of what you do have: `It's  things like 
electricity, the minute your electricity goes out you're  like, 
`Oh my gosh, if only I had electricity I'd be so happy!" But it's  
not like we walk around in an ecstasy every day over  
electricity."
As for simple, radical acts of public solitude  -- like taking 
yourself out to dinner -- Eric Klinenberg, a sociologist  and 
author of "Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising  
Appeal of Living Alone," says a large part of people's discomfort 
is  the result of social expectation.  "There are some 
[activities]  that are socially approved to do alone, like you 
wouldn't think twice  about going to a coffee shop by yourself, 
but going to a fancy  restaurant or a play feels strange." That 
strangeness is typically the  result of our knee-jerk assumption 
that doing things alone equals  desperation.
Two years ago, the video "How to Be Alone" starring  writer 
Tanya Davis and her poem about the "freedom" of being by yourself  
-- eating, dancing, reading, hiking -- went viral.  The video got  
more than 4.5 million hits: Clearly, her sweet and simple advice  
(for example, "We could start with the acceptable places, the  
bathroom, the coffee shop, the library") resonated with people.   
As she says in the four-minute clip, "Society is afraid of 
alonedom,  like lonely hearts are wasting away in basements, like 
people must have  problems if, after a while, nobody is dating 
them.  But lonely is a  freedom that breathes easy and weightless 
and lonely is healing if you  make it."
It's odd that being alone requires any  instruction.  As Ford so 
exquisitely and painfully put it: We're  born alone, we die alone 
and "deep within our souls we live alone" --  but it's one of 
life's many poetic ironies that we couldn't be more  together in 
our  aloneness.
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