Top 6... I Mean, Middle 6... Reasons Why Solitude ROCKS!

After the highs and lows of summer school, I find myself on vacation for the month of August. I deliberately chose not to travel or to do anything unusual this summer, and instead committed to relaxing at home and enjoying it, since I’m so used to using my house more as a launch pad during the school year than as a dwelling. While I’ve always known that I lean toward introversion, coming out consistently as an INFJ on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory, I’ve always tried to push myself to be something other than that. Some of it had to do with wanting to fight the smart-but-can’t-socialize stereotype that has always existed, and until recently, I had no idea that that’s what I was doing. To my delight, I found that I didn’t need to keep on constantly battling against myself. I realized that I’m an introvert and I like it! Since I'm bored with 'Top 10' and 'Top 5' lists, I've decided to create a 'Middle 6' list of the reasons why solitude delights this introvert's soul:

8. Books. Coffee. Sandwiches.

All of the above are difficult to fully savor when you’re distracted by things like noise or incessant verbal processing.

7. Earplugs Get Uncomfortable

My resident Partner-in-Crime  – a far more introverted soul than I am – introduced me to the proper use of earplugs, and how I wish I had had them growing up! I didn’t realize until I was in my twenties that they could be used for anything other than road construction or factory work. Since then, I’ve used them to block out snoring, block out the neighbors on Competitive Suburban Lawnmowing Day, and for a variety of other quiet-making necessities. On the other hand, having them out and hearing nothing but the sound of the refrigerator humming is a pleasure.

6. Freedom of Choice

It can be awfully nice sometimes to be able to casually decide that you’re going to have lunch…now, rather than needing to take other people’s schedules into account. This is much, much harder to do if there is someone else around. Also, if you are used to making someone else's needs more important than yours in an unhealthy kind of way, or if you haven’t had the opportunity to develop much self-understanding, solitude has a way of helping you to become clear about what you like and don’t, and opens the door to further learning about where your preferences are as a unique human being without them being wrong or shameful.

5. Regular Rendezvous with the Unexpected

I’m amazed by how something completely new has the space to come into my life because I’ve stopped cluttering up all the free time with my brain’s never-ending to-do list. I was lucky enough to find some new radio stations to listen to, featuring world music, folk music, and even an oldies station I didn’t know about because I had the time to get curious about what my radio buttons could access other than Ke$ha, who apparently woke up twice before 9:30 this morning feeling like P. Diddy.

4. Pursuing the Creative Impulse

The pieces of life come together when you have some downtime, and sometimes the desire to do something in one area of your life satisfies more than one need. I had an overwhelming urge to go out to parks and state highways in my area and take photographs one day last week and came home to find that I had an array of photographs that I would be able to use as much-needed decorative art for the Master Bedroom, as well as potential gifts.

3. Spiritual Perspective

It is easy to get into a habit of reaching outside of oneself –whether you’re introverted or extroverted – when you’re feeling depleted and finding nothing to fill you. For those times when nothing else is fitting the bill, even five minutes of hiding in the bathroom, closing your eyes, and taking a few deep breaths can help to re-connect you to yourself or to God/Spirit. The chance to briefly be centered in solitude and be aware can quickly refresh and rejuvenate you.

I hope you are inspired to bring a little bit of the spirit of solitude into your world today!

Chicken Little Syndrome

When I was a kid, I went through a period of time where "Chicken Little" was my favorite story. I remember sitting in my grandmother's basement, switching back and forth between that and the children's version of the story of David and Goliath. Even though there were dazzling bright red letters on light blue background that nearly induced nystagmus on the David and Goliath book, I eventually favored Chicken Little, mostly because it was so silly! I mean, this tiny bird ran around all the time screaming about the sky falling when it wasn't! What a goofball!

Well.

Some twenty-odd years later, in the wake of what could have been a horribly catastrophic work situation, I find myself shaking my head, confused and puzzled by the innocuous, low-key outcome that actually took place and feeling a lot like Chicken Little.

All I know is that, time and again throughout my adult life, I've been in positions where I've found myself worried and fearful of what may come next. Worried that I don't have the skills or internal resources to deal with it. Worried that something bad is going to happen because I opened my mouth and tried on being assertive, rather than being passive or aggressive, or passive-aggressive. Worried that this time, this time it's really going to turn out just as badly as the worst case scenario I'm playing in my head says it will. Time and again, I have found that the worst case scenario virtually never happens.

How did I come to expect the worst out of things? I don't suppose the answer to that is really important. What is important to me, though, is all of the time I've wasted on worrying about the things that I cannot control. No matter what happens, no matter what I think I want to have in my life, there will always be factors that are outside of my control. It isn't like my worrying makes it easier or changes how other people think or respond. To think so is just believing in irrelevant hocus-pocus.

Basically, I can control how I choose to think about my life and what I choose to do about it. As far as I can tell, that's about it. When I think of it that way, there is so much I can control, but at the same time, so little.

Whenever I hear Chicken Little screaming and scrambling about inside of my head, perhaps I can find a way not to get caught up in it, not to follow him around and start screaming myself, but stop for a minute, look up at the sky, and see if it's truly falling. Chances are, it will still be up there.