Solitude is the lost tool for peace and service to others

We constantly crave that new Vine. We cannot wait for that new blog post, YouTube video, or latest season to appear on Netflix. We are desperate for that new comment on Facebook or heart on Instagram. If that isn’t the case, why are we always feeding ourselves with those things?

You know the saying, “You are what you eat”? There’s a possibility that we take in more than what we give out. Health professionals have been trying to combat the gluttony pandemic by treating it as strictly an obesity endemic in America for so long, but perhaps we are neglecting what’s more important – the inner being/ soul / mind/ whatever you want to call it.

According to the Business Insider website, Americans spend about an hour a day on their phones. It’s not like people sit for an hour using their phones, and then they’re done. No, you see people checking their phones constantly. When are we most likely to be browsing the Internet? When we are alone, of course! An hour out of each day really isn’t much, but that one hour spent browsing dumb memes, taking selfies, and playing trivia crack could each steal precious moments of solitude. How often do we spend time alone when we have responsibilities such as school, work, families, shopping, and holidays? It’s like we don’t have much time for actual solitude unless we’re sleeping.

The time we do spend alone isn’t spent on rejuvenating the mind. Meditation, the source of peace for many, is often looked upon as some sort of mindless religious convention, but even medical journals, WebMD, the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health, Harvard University, and many other groups and studies acknowledge the positive effects of meditation. Meditation lowers blood pressure, lowers anxiety, soothes chronic pain, and boosts the immune system. In order to meditate, one must be free from distractions, which is where solitude comes in handy.

One reason why someone may be afraid to meditate alone is the anxiety experienced from being lonely. Practicing solitude might be the right way to learn how to be comfortable without being around people all the time.

Secondly, people must sometimes resist the craving to know the answer to everything. The quickest way is to Google the answer. Rarely do people just sit, imagine, and marvel at things without the need to know every technical detail about what they are observing.

Journalists, scientists, and other groups of well-educated people understand the desire to know everything. But sometimes it’s actually productive to sit back, gaze at the stars, and let their essence capture your focus. MHCC psychology instructor Stephanie Cram teaches in her Psych 201 class that the brain needs 15 minutes per day “off the leash.” In other words, we need to be able to imagine, like children do: no motive, no schedule, no strategy.

Not only do we need time to just allow the mind to wander, but we also need to take time alone to examine ourselves, examine our thoughts, and sort through the good and the bad. It’s important to trash the bad, and store the positive thoughts and attitudes. Every day we need to examine how we treated our friends and family. We should motivate ourselves for the future and speak kind words to ourselves. For some of us, connecting to a higher power helps us cope and strengthen us when we know we cannot do things on our own.

Meditation started as a spiritual practice in general, but anyone can use it as a tool to clear the mind, filter the thoughts, or focus continually on one aspect of a beautiful thing.

And if we nourish our minds with things that are beneficial to ourselves, we will benefit others as a result.

The book, Quiet: The Power Of Introverts by Susan Cain, describes Mahatma Gandhi as a man who sought to speak every word with relevance. Gandhi said: “I have naturally formed the habit of restraining my thoughts. A thoughtless word hardly ever escaped my tongue or pen. Experience has taught me that silence is part of the spiritual discipline of a votary of truth. We find so many people impatient to talk. All this talking can hardly be said to be of any benefit to the world.”

Indeed, we have become impatient people. Some have used social media in the wrong way. We have become lonely and selfish for all the wrong reasons. We put out things – selfies, statuses, links, photos – for the purpose of taking in and consuming the results.

We should instead sincerely take in positive things, like meditation, reflection, rejuvenation, to give back to the world. As Gandhi said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”