About a week ago on my Instagram (follow me @_thepinkchickadee), I shared on my stories a link to a post about a New York Times article headlining “Americans Are Spending More Time At Home – And More Time Alone”. And, while I do not have a New York Times subscription and hence had trouble reading the article, the headline alone triggered me into *just a few* ramblings of my own thoughts on this matter aka loneliness in 2024. Moreover, I see the importance for spending time alone for all of us (including my fellow extrovert friends!), however, at the same time, I see the importance for spending time with others for all of us (including, yes, my fellow introvert friends!). The moral of the story is that while we are placing a much-needed greater emphasis on the need for self care and the person as a whole, we also need to make time to be with our loved ones and *even* those now far and few interactions with strangers. In the end, all of us need a community of people and a support system in our corner, which the recent COVID-19 pandemic has made to be much trickier than in the past. ANDDDD, prevent loneliness in 2024 and the years to come.
As previously mentioned on my Instagram Stories, there are MAJOR benefits to prioritizing ourselves and our alone time through practicing self care, limiting overbooking and overextending ourselves, and focusing on ourselves as an individual as a whole and not just who we are professionally. But, at the same time, I have noticed that if people want to find community, then there is a bigger need to put ourselves out there than ever before. Interactions with strangers have become much more few and far in between as compared to in the past (such as when I was a kid). For example, 15 years ago as a kid, I would be walking my childhood dog Butters and pretty much every dog and their owner would stop and the dogs would play with one another (if it was OKAY given Butters’ size as a 5 pound Yorkie). Yet, nowadays, when I am walking my dog Rosie who’s about 35 pounds, a LOT LESS in fact practically no dogs’ owners will stop to let their dogs play with Rosie *even* if the dog wants to stop and play the owners will tug them away. Not only are these fewer daily interactions with others negatively impactful on me, but it also harms my dog’s (and other dogs’) mental health. And, limiting these interactions such as time for dogs to play and interacting with other dogs while on walks do contribute to our loneliness as a whole, thus, creating that greater divide between finding community and finding comfort within our own space and hence being alone (even if that means we are experiencing loneliness in 2024).
I will say though that from personal experiences, I have cut back on a lot of social interactions in the past year and most recently in the past few months. For instance, I used to network A TON professionally both in my 9-5 and beyond within the Greater Washington, DC area. But, as I was networking time and time again, I found myself getting extremely burned out and decided to cut back on these professional activities for my own wellbeing and rather focus on personal activities with friends and family and building my personal community instead. Recently, I have found that saying “No” can be beneficial, too (I will save my thoughts on this for another post, though!). Nevertheless, cutting back on networking professionally has been beneficial for my own self care. Needless to say, while I am sharing my thoughts about loneliness here, I do want to share my own experiences with cutting back in a social manner, too, to show that none of us are alone in doing so.
Currently, I think there is a divide between our self care and our time with others. In American culture, we place a HIGH value on our working lives that once we finish our tasks at work (or even take them home) we don’t want to take the time to do things beyond work. We place a major emphasis on being productive but we want that time beyond our own productivity to ourselves and ourselves only. And guess what?!?! That is OKAY, but it’s also VITAL and IMPORTANT to our own wellbeing and even our own successes. There is a ton of value in taking time to be alone and with ourselves and have our “me time”. Like I said earlier, *even* extroverts need “me time”, too. But, we also MUST have time with others, and yes, *even* introverts need time with others, as well. We as humans are naturally social beings and we thrive off of being around others even if it’s in doses here and there.
Needless to say, I find that there’s something to be said for alone time and it doesn’t have to make us lonely either. Hence, my own desires to cut back on certain interactions to prioritize my own self care (something that I think we ALL should do!). During the COVID-19 pandemic, many of us found ourselves spending more and more time at home and truly enjoying the benefits of slowing down. Consequently, many of us continued to reap those benefits of slowing down and not being on the go 24/7 like we were pre-pandemic. Self care IS important and like my best fried Shivani says, it is something that we all must practice in order to achieve the things that we set out to achieve (whether professionally or personally). There are truly some great pros to spending time alone and it is vital to our wellbeing, both physical and mental health, and also to our professional and personal accolades and that should not be overlooked.
While I won’t get into some specifics of my own thoughts and solutions to this HUGE trend of loneliness in 2024 in our society that has both pros and cons to it in this post, I will say that I think that there should be a balance of both time with ourselves and time with others. Community is vital to both our mental and physical wellbeing and overtime can develop into a support system which every person needs and can benefit from having. Personally, I feel fortunate to have an incredible community over on my Instagram page (and here too!) and also in-person in my own life. There is something to be said for communities whether in our own backyards or online or both (I find a little bit of both to be beneficial for myself!).
To wrap up this post which will become a series of posts over time, I want to note that my thoughts are my thoughts alone, but that I know I am not alone in how I feel. Many of y’all in my Instagram community shared your own thoughts and experiences to my ramblings on this loneliness in 2024 and I am SOOO grateful that you did. One of y’all even shared (shoutout to @dcmahj on Instagram!) that y’all started your mahjong meetup group to cultivate community amongst others through a shared interest of learning to and playing mahjong together in Washington, DC! Having each of YOU in my community is a HUGE BLESSING to me. Community in all forms is a beautiful thing. Nevertheless, thank YOU.
XOXO – Katie <3