7 Ways to Enjoy Loneliness

Loneliness is defined by the web dictionary as, “a feeling in which people experience a strong sense of emptiness and solitude. Loneliness is often compared to feeling empty, unwanted, and unimportant. Someone who is lonely may find it hard to form strong interpersonal relationships."

The definition itself scared me, as I am a cheerful person, love interaction, love crowds, highly extrovert and so on. The definition doesn’t suit to my character now, in my present mindset. But I remember when I was a teenager and was studying I suffered loneliness a lot. But later in the life I learned to enjoy my loneliness.

Great people say, ‘’we tend to commit various sin when we are alone.’’ It is true not only in case of the teenagers but also in case of good Christians who suffer from fear, lack selfcontrol and lack of practical faith in their lonely time. I have gone through that phase also. But as the time passed by, and I committed myself more & more to Him, the spirit of God taught me how to enjoy my life in my loneliness too. I don’t feel depressed, worried, or friendless when I am lonely these days. In fact I love my loneliness.

Underneath, I have given some tips that describe how we can enjoy our loneliness which I have learnt through my life over the years.

1. Sightseeing & Engaging with Nature: I love to get mesmerized by God’s wonderful creation. I love to listen to the birds singing. I love to see the beauty of nature and praise God for creating it that way. The nature describes His attributes. Have we ever tried to find them? Last week I travelled by train & bus to few places. I took so many pictures of His creation. It gave me so much satisfaction that I can’t explain. And I have felt in my life that birds and animals take away our pain when we keep looking at their actions and life styles. It’s a fun watching them. We can continue chatting with His wonderful creation to keep ourselves happy in our loneliness.

2. Online Activities: Thecomputer and internet are so favorite to me. Why don’t you participate in online polls? Some are really interesting. Read online facts and articles. Sometimes googling is so interesting when you can research
so many things online. These days blogging is such an important part of our life. We can maintain an online diary for ourselves and let people know many things that we learn in life.

3. Play & Talk with the children & old people: Have we ever tried to play with kids? Sometimes oldage homes and orphanages really take our loneliness away when we spend little time with them. The simplicity of children & the experience of the old people can really enhance our mind.

4. Interacting through E-mails & SMSs: There are people who find it difficult to interact. If we are one of them we should think of some other ways of interacting. Interaction is a great fun. I love it. I have some tips. First let’s check our contact list. Copy them to a word or excel file. Color them according to their importance and relationship with us and then copy them back for sending mails according to each category or color of contacts. If we send to hundred contacts, we will receive at least 30 responses definitely. That will definitely encourage us as our mail would have encouraged almost all of them when we send emails in the first place.

Send inspiring SMSs. We will get back some responses and keep interacting and encouraging that way. Once I sent a SMS to someone and he replied back, “how did you know I was going through little difficulties?" I said, ‘I don’t know. I just send a SMS as you’re in my list.’ That day I realized how important one inspiring SMS is!

5. Community Activities & Sharing Smiles: How much time do we spend with our neighbors? How many times do we really see the faces of our neighbors a day? In today’s world of technologies we are losing out face to face interactions. We are becoming more and more mechanical. Do we live in a campus of an apartment? Do we talk to people of our own campus? I do it and we all can do it if we have the desire to do it. It relieves so much pressure, stress and our inner loneliness that we can’t really even imagine. Sharing our smiles with each other in the community we live is very relieving, reviving and healthy.

Let’s do it often when we are feeling lonely.

6. Working on our Hobbies: I don’t find time for others when I start working on my hobbies. I compose music, I write articles, I love cooking, I used to paint t-shirts, and I love listening to music. When I am engrossed with one of these I can’t be disturbed at all. And I love my hobbies and the talents God has given me.

Trust me, when we keep ourselves busy with our hobbies we won’t feel lonely at all. We should start searching and finding what we like the most in our life. We should know the talents God has given us. And we can’t give an excuse that we were not given any of the talents others have.

7. Sleeping alone heartily: Don’t we like to sleep? When I am alone and don’t have anything to do I just go to sleep. That’s fun. Sleep gives you lot’s of energy and enthusiasm back which you feel lost. When we all sleep we sleep lonely. Isn’t it? So it’s the best and easiest activity when we feel lonely.

There may be many more tips to enjoy our loneliness. I shared what I usually do in my life. We need to change our mindset, our perspective towards life and its challenges like, ‘loneliness.’

Read, try out and enjoy loneliness.