Living alone is truly a special ability. People who know how to live alone, enjoy and create values from this life still feel happy no different from living “alone”.
But few people understand that. The image of couples, family reunions, friends raising their glasses to toast with smiles on their faces… seems to have become the representative image of the concept of happiness. We look at it and think: Ah, so that’s what happiness is, that’s how happiness should be! We forget that happiness is actually much closer, happiness may not need anything or anyone to create a catalyst, but it is within us, complete, pure – the peaceful happiness from our own body and mind!
I have a girlfriend who is very good at managing her life. For many reasons, she chooses to be single. Alone in a big city, at the age of 37, she seems to have everything according to social standards: (many) houses, cars, savings accounts, domestic and international trips..., but she lacks a husband and a few children. So how can that be called living, my child? - her mother often calls to complain. In her mother's eyes, her living alone in a luxury apartment, eating alone in fancy restaurants, driving alone in the rain and sun... are the lonely activities of a lonely person, pitifully lonely. Her mother has complained many times that she would rather her daughter be less talented, less rich, less beautiful... to find a normal husband, to have a normal life, than being so excellent in all those things but still being alone!
She didn't know that, for her daughter, being single was a choice, and that she was completely comfortable, relaxed, happy, and enjoying that life.
People who are capable of being alone – like my friend – are admirable independent personalities. They do not outsource their joys and sorrows to others. They are not afraid of being bored when they are alone. They enjoy their alone time and space as a realm of wisdom. They have inner harmony, understand themselves and overcome their own limitations. In fact, most of us spend our whole lives learning how to interact with the outside world, but the most important core, a deep multi-layered magical world inside that we often forget, is the inner world. People who are capable of being alone do this very well: understand and love themselves. Anyone who has read Osho has known this saying: Only those who are capable of being alone have the ability to love, to share, to go to the deepest core of the other, without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without reducing the other to an object and without becoming addicted to the other. They allow others absolute freedom, because they know that if others leave, they will still be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken away by others, because it was not given to them by others.
Of course, living alone does not mean completely not socializing or connecting with anyone. On the contrary, people who choose to live alone as I know have very rich activities, a wide network of communication, and friends all over the world. However, their ego is strong enough to not rely on, not depend on, not entrust their happiness, sadness, hope, disappointment... to others. They are completely proactive in their lives. They are the captains of their own life ship.
How about you, do you have the ability to live alone? Can you create happiness for yourself without needing others to bring it to you?
