Life is on easy mode when I’m alone.

When I’m alone, I can control my mind and emotions and feel confident and happy. When I’m alone, sure, I have my bad days, but most are good.

Why is this?

Because being alone is my own comfort zone. Some people have the opposite: being with others is their comfort zone and they can’t stand being alone. 

But for me, I get a lot of comfort in being alone.

I’m not sure why this is, but I think it might be because I’m introverted, or that I’m a product of growing up on the internet, gaining community and belonging from internet forums and Reddit.

My life becomes a lot harder when I throw people into the mix: a girlfriend, a spouse, a child, an employee, a parent, a boss, a travel partner, a roommate, etc.

Adding people to the equation makes it harder for me to predict my own thoughts and emotions. This makes me feel like I’m losing control, which is particularly challenging for me.

When I’m alone and something hard happens, I know that I can resolve the situation and that I’m resourceful enough to do it without anyone else. Or, I know I can just run away from it.

When something hard happens and I’m not alone, I can’t just run away or put it off for another day. It can only be fixed collaboratively, by both people, and they must be on the same page.

Let me give an example, running:

When I’m running alone, and I get tired, I can stop. I don’t have to finish the workout. Nobody is going to be disappointed in me if I stop, nobody will even know.

But if I’m running with someone else, and they are faster than me, there’s nothing I can do to keep up with them other than give it my all which will push me out of my comfort zone.

The same goes for running a marathon. Thousands of fellow runners and spectators, and everyone is counting on you to finish. 

In the 4 hour duration of running a marathon, I’ll grow more as a human than I would in months, and I’ll run my best time ever.