Solitude During COVID
If we want to have more fun in our lives, perhaps we should spend more time alone. Being in quarantine has given us a unique opportunity to reevaluate the way we live. When we’re stuck in the bustle of day-to-day life, it can be easy to fool ourselves into complacency. We’re able to drag along much more baggage—career worries, body image, anxiety, etc.—because we have lots to distract us. Now that the world has been placed on “pause,” it’s harder to distract ourselves from those problems. We must learn to be happy without the need for distraction, and our lives will be all the better for it.
No More Distractions
In the midst of the COVID crisis, many of us have gotten more solitude than we desire. For a while, I thought this was a disadvantage. Quarantine has felt boring and unengaging. So, I’ve been stuck thinking about the future, assuming that time with my friends will fix my problems. I thought that too much time alone can be damaging. It’s easy to get stuck in your head on problems or regrets, causing unnecessary stress and anxiety. But, then I read a quote from Thoreau that made me reconsider my thoughts on solitude:
“For the most part we allow only outlying and transient circumstances to make our occasions. They are, in fact, the cause of our distraction.”
I realized that those stresses and anxieties don’t go away when I’m with my friends, they’re just less obvious. When I’m alone, the volume gets turned down, and my problems become uncomfortably apparent. These problems are a distraction from the experiences I’m supposed to be having with my friends. I allow outside circumstances to affect my attitude, and my attitude affects my experiences. In other words, my experiences are not defined by the quality of the experience itself, but by whatever my attitude happens to be given the circumstances surrounding that particular day. Would spending time with friends be an improvement over quarantine? Sure. However, if my attitude is going to bring a general feeling of dissatisfaction, tarnishing the experience, that’s an issue.
It’s a YOU Problem
The interesting thing about quarantine is that it helps prove that our problems are internal. We typically blame our busy day-to-day lives to justify a feeling of dissatisfaction. In quarantine, we have all the spare time in the world. Yet, chances are that we still don’t feel satisfied. Now we blame quarantine for our dissatisfaction and look forward to all the things we can do once this pandemic is over. We’ve come full circle.
What we need to recognize is that this way of thinking will never leave us satisfied. Our ability to enjoy experiences is completely tied to our attitude in the moment. Might we have more fun being out with our friends? Sure, but right now we can take advantage of our time alone. It is unlikely that we will ever be forced into reflection as we have been now. This is the time to face our problems head-on and figure out ways to get over them. Learn what it means to be content with what you have instead of wanting more. If we work to cultivate a better attitude while in isolation, our experiences are bound to be richer for it.
The Return
What happens when the world “returns to normal”? If we lack control over our attitudes, we cannot hope to enjoy our newfound freedom. But, if we can learn to be content while in solitude, then we have a much better shot. I’m not saying this is easy—people spend their whole lives trying to do this stuff. Yet, it does indicate that we shouldn’t be daydreaming about our return to normal life. Instead, we should take advantage of this time and learn to be a bit more comfortable with ourselves. When we shed that emotional baggage, we’ll feel much lighter as we re-emerge into the world.