Keeping Company or None At All

Why do we feel lonely? Once we understand the reason, that is one step closer to ridding ourselves of that unpleasant feeling. For every person, the root cause of the feeling may be different. One reason we may feel alone is because we are seeking attention from others. When this becomes apparent to us we must stop and search for the “WHY.” Is it because we seek validation? Or maybe we are not comfortable with being by ourselves? Whatever the case may be, we have to come to terms with it and seek the best cure. The best cure for being lonely is… are you ready? … Yup, you guessed it! … BEING ALONE. If you think about it, we are the only thing we actually have! Let me explain; All of the materialistic things and the people in our lives will one day fade, becoming a memory. It is essential that you are comfortable with who you are. You cannot rely on people or things that are external to you for your own well being and peace of mind. Once you figure out the reason, you will not feel lonely because everything you need is within you, and you will no longer need to seek validation from that which is not within.

Entering an intimate relationship because you are lonely, is the worst possible reason you can give for being with someone. When you think you need to be with someone in order to feel complete, there is something more that needs to be explored about yourself. You cannot expect to feel complete with the help of your significant other. If you enter a relationship expecting that the other person is going to make you whole, you’re setting the relationship up for failure. You are expecting them to complete you but in a relationship you never know what to expect. When entering a relationship there is no real guarantee that it will “cure” our loneliness. Loving yourself for who you are and feeling confident about yourself is the cure to loneliness. You will not NEED another person to validate those feelings for you.

There are times in our lives when we need to be alone, and there are other times when we need to surround ourselves with people. However, being around the wrong people can be the worst feeling in the world. Loneliness does not mean you are alone, it is a feeling, no matter what your surroundings are. Sometimes when you are alone, that is when you feel the least lonely because you are free to be yourself and do not require the approval of people around you. It is always nice to have a stimulating conversation with another capable being, but if that conversation takes place with an incapable being or someone who simply who does not give an “F” then tis better to be alone that with that “Debby Downer.” There is nothing wrong with you, however the other person needs to learn not to be so damn RUDE!

When I needed to be in the company of my friends and family, they weren’t there for me. One evening, we were all enjoying one another’s company when I was flat out ignored and neglected. When I was speaking no one put the effort or interest in what I had to say. When I stopped to see how others were responding, I realized that 2 of the people were texting one another back and forth (RUDE!!!). This made me feel unimportant and unappreciated. If these people did not want to spend time with me that is fine but they did not have to drag my self esteem down as well. I would have been fine on my own, at least I would not have have felt ignored. I was more lonely around ALL these people than I would have been if they weren’t there. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” (-Maya Angelou) Those people made me feel lonely and that is what I will remember, and I know that they are not who I want to be around.

Being alone and feeling lonely are two different things. You can feel lonely in a crowded room, more so, than if you were left alone. Find the reason you feel lonely and figure out why you crave the attention or company from other people to feel whole. No matter HOW you go about solving this unpleasant feeling you have to take the time to look within yourself to find the answer. Seeking comfort from the people or things around you will only cover up the loneliness for a short period, but it will come back to the surface at some point. Loving yourself and understanding WHO you are and what makes you happy will lead you to living a much healthier lifestyle, because your mind will be in harmony with how you are living your day-to-day life. So, make time for yourself, your future self will thank you. ;)

~Thank you <3

H O P E

A feeling of expectation and desire for a certain thing to happen. If you have air in your lungs and blood in your veins you have hope. Hope is what drives the human mind to move forward in life. When faced with a rather grim situation, hope is that agent that brings positivity to it, making us believe that things HAVE to get better. Hope is ALL we have, without it we have no reason… we have nothing. Humans have a limited time on this planet and we have to make the best of what we have and look to the positives in our lives. We do not know what tomorrow holds, but we hope that whatever is in store for us will be favorable. Hope is making the best of what you have, so that you can have a better outcome for tomorrow. When life gives you lemons, you make a lemon drop and plant the seeds so you can get more lemons in the future. ;)  ... It takes YEARS for a lemon tree to begin to produce lemons ...  hope is the same way. You should never give up on the tree because you do not know when that tree will bless you with the fruits of your labor (hard work)... When you have hope you should never lose it because once it pays off it will be all the more fulfilling.

Hope can be difficult to hold on to when all things seem lost. When people go through depression or a traumatic experience, it may seem that there is no way you can recover from it. However, somewhere in the back of one’s mind we have to believe that things will change for the better. BELIEVING that you will overcome the obstacle is half the battle. Once you have the mindset that things will get better, they HAVE to. If you hit rock bottom, there is nowhere else to go but up. Having hope will allow you to see beyond your current predicament into the future. One’s mind set can be the difference between one’s failure and one’s success, when you think you cannot do something chances are you will not reach that goal. When you reach this crossroads say to yourself, “Try, try again, and NEVER say ‘I can’t.”  Simply saying these words to yourself will affect your mentality toward the situation. It will make all the difference in your outcome and stops you from throwing in the towel.

Who remembers all of the controversy surrounding the Winter Solstice of 2012? The end to the Maya Calendar, or in other words the end of the WORLD? How many of us stopped our lives because we were betting on the fact that we were going to die? The Maya Calendar ended and some INTELLIGENT people took this as the world was going to end … but the majority of us, “normal” people still went about our lives and prepared for our futures. … we had hope. Granted not everyone believed that the world was going to end, but if everyone had, things would have been very different. Had we lost that hope, everyone's lives would have been in chaos, no one would have prepared for the day after. What we hope for tomorrow determines what our actions will be today. During this event I was finishing up my LAST semester at university, had I believed the world was going to end, I would not have bothered to get my education. However I had hope that the world was not going to end, as a result I secured my future by earning my degree.

We do not know what our future holds, and when we begin to think about our future we make a choice about how to pursue that life path. We think about what career will make us feel fulfilled. Once we begin to pursue that career path we hope that it works out for us. The reason we form ideas and construct dreams is because we have hope. We hope that they will one day come true, and that the future will be better than the present moment. There are no simple roads to success and when we hit a brick wall we look to the power of HOPE to see us through that rough patch. Without having hope, we would give up LONG before reaching or even realizing our potential. Some say babies are a blank slates and we learn basic things in life from walking to learning, and how to communicate, but if we gave up every time we fell no one would know how to walk. Throughout our life we WILL fall down, and having hope is what helps us get back up. If you fall 6 times you HAVE to get up 7 times, those 6 falls do not matter, it is the seventh rise that matters the most! Don’t nobody wanna stay down!   

Even when we hope with every fiber of our being, there will be times where all of our hope will be for nothing, and disappointment settles in where that hope once stood. That disappointment is not the “end,” but it is an opportunity to LEARN. We are not perfect human beings, there are many things that are in our control and if we have made the wrong decisions it is up to us to learn from our actions. Hope keeps us motivated, and it give us a reason for living. Our very existence is not based on a promise, but it is based on having hope for tomorrow and living for the future.

~Dream. HOPE. Future.