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Today's
Meditation:
How many years it took me to discover this wonderful
fact of life! Those were years during which I could
have taken advantage of so many opportunities to visit, to
see, to experience, to learn-- and instead I wasted many of
those chances pining for someone with whom to share
them. I didn't fully value the chances I had to do
things on my own, without worrying about someone else's
schedule, without having to make plans based on someone
else's whims. And I didn't value the true beauty of
actually being alone with myself and experiencing more
things on my own.
It's a mystery to me now why our culture is so unwilling
to teach our young people the value of being alone and
spending their time with their own company. If we
can learn from an early age just how nice it can be to be
alone-- as long as we have a healthy perspective about
being alone-- then the time we spend on our own can be much
more valuable. Sadly, though, very few people are
willing to spend time alone, so they never find out just
how positive it can be.
It is wonderful to spend time with others. It's
great to share ideas and learn from each other, to spend
time together and bond and enjoy each other's
company. But that doesn't mean that time alone can't
be wonderful, too. The time alone can allow us to
clarify our ideas, to think things through without
interruption or interference, to settle things in our
minds and hearts, to reflect on things that we've done and
things that we want to do.
And that lack of interference, of other people's ideas,
can be one of the most beneficial things we ever
experience. When we come to conclusions on our own,
when we learn to deal with problems that our minds bring
to us on our own, then we learn one of the most important
lessons that life gives us. It's great to allow
others to help us and to pursue interdependence, but it's
also necessary to be able to spend time on our own and
make that time valuable, not worthless, and to enjoy our
own company in solitude rather than loneliness.
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