Alone and Listening to Loneliness on Loop?

On my way home and with nothing to do, I listened to this radio show which promised callers to be matched. When asked why they called, the 2 callers I listened to answered Ayoko na kasing mag-isa or I don’t want to be alone anymore. Two callers, a few minutes of mere mockery later and the chirita feeling starting to boil inside me, I just whipped out my earphones and listened to my tunes. Did not want to hear any useless complaining about being alone anymore.

Why are we afraid of being alone? Maybe because we’ve painted being alone as so lonely when they aren’t actually even synonymous in the first place.

Let us get this straight. Being alone is the physical state of being on one’s own or without having anyone with you. Loneliness meanwhile, to put it simply, is the emotional equivalent.

Therefore, one maybe lonely but not alone. Such is the feeling when despite being surrounded by a lot of people and have had a lot of relationships, and yet you still feel isolated and disconnected.

On the contrary, one also may be alone and not lonely. You can physically be on your own without feeling isolated and disconnected at all. Such experience occurs when one realizes that genuine happiness transcends the physical; it remains despite the physical absence of the people and things that make us happy. We can be alone but be very much happy.

Before, I was actually bothered whenever I was out alone. Back then, being alone was being lonely for me. And it was an awful feeling I loathed. But now that I’m surer about who I am and being alone, I have no more qualms doing things alone.

Sometimes, being alone reveals a kind of personal contentment which goes beyond the trivialities of human relationships and the need for us to physically be with others. Accepting such fact may lead us to snap out of the loneliness loop we’ve been so insecurely used to listening to for so long.