Solitude

Have you ever looked back upon your life and realized that where you are now is the sum of all the choices you have made? And when you look at yourself now, you are all alone, suffering the neverending punishment of solitude because all those “choices” were all mistakes.

Solitude can manifest itself in many ways, each time hitting harder than the last. Imagine yourself at a workplace, where everyone has a herd mentality and follows the trend just because “everyone else is doing it”.

Being the conscious thinker, you realized that there are some loopholes and issues blindly following the crowd and decided to make a solo play. Not that you are looking for any recognition for being different, but at least you would expect yourself not to be scorned just for making a different choice. But now, because of your choice, you have been marked as an “outsider”, “blasphemer” or “traitor”.

Many people fail to think deeper into how others make decisions and tend to commit a choice-supportive bias or herd mentality. This type of thinking is extremely foolish and dangerous, and it really boggles the mind of the conscious thinker such as yourself. Yet sadly, this type of thinking exists everywhere.

This goes on for a while and you start to feel a little angry, a little upset, and slightly confused at why everyone is feeling this way when you just wanted to make a choice that just so happens to be different from everybody else. You lose a little confidence at first, and then almost all of it. Self-doubt creeps in where confidence used to stand, and it is a downward spiral from thereon.

Sometimes, the solitude of the mind also cripples you physically. There could be many thoughts that are running in your head, each overlapping another and they get so tangled up you are no longer able to articulate them to anyone else because they might not understand. Or won’t even try to understand. This starts to build and you try to channel your thoughts by writing, meditating, or simply not caring at all.

You could argue that facing it head-on is the only way to heal, but then again, is it really? And this is when your self-doubt really kicks it up a notch.

“Should I have followed everyone else?”

“The choices I have made seem to be wrong.”

“Why have I done this to myself?”

All these thoughts just build up because there is simply no funnel for you to release them. You try to seek help but you realize that this path has no one else but yourself. The feeble attempts at trying to explain it to someone else tires you and deep down you know they don’t care. You are the only one who can truly make the decisions of your life. (Free will is an illusion? Probably another article for another time.)

In my experience, screw it. Let everything else that makes you unhappy go. Good or bad, the choices that you’ve made are already part of you, and there is nothing you can do to turn time back. Just move on and keep going. No matter what happens, life continues and the solitude will fade. Along the way, you will make new choices, some good and some bad, but you will understand that you are not alone.

Leaving a job, breaking up, wanting to go your own path. I have faced these issues, just like the millions before me and the millions to come.

I left multiple jobs but it never really ended well, I’ve been called a traitor and untrustworthy and had my reputation smeared to the ground just because I wanted to leave a company.

I broke up with a toxic girl that just wanted to pin her insecurities from her previous relationships and assumed I was like that too. It got so tiring to a point that when I broke up, I felt nothing but absolute joy and relief.

I wanted to go my own path because I don’t like people to tell me what to do (perhaps that’s why it always ends badly with any company I join). It is tough, I am suffering, I am struggling, but I am not alone.

I am no longer bound by these constructs and norms of what should and should not be. I am happy.