Learn to be alone

In another country. Live alone. Not close to family. Few friends. No lover. Each sentence and each word exudes a strange loneliness. That is my past and present situation.

Born in a small village with the habit of living in a community, so subconsciously, being with many others and sharing life is happiness for myself. Thinking back to that time, I never had a definition of "unhappy" or "lonely". I am always close to kind neighbors, have siblings to play with, and have my parents, grandmother, and brother by my side.

But life started to turn around when I reached high school. I had to leave where my family lived to go to the city to start an independent life. And then there was studying abroad. My life began to change direction with the appearance of many alone spaces. There were times when I really had no one by my side. During that time, occasionally people will appear to fill those gaps for a short period of time and then they leave. I was extremely miserable because of that. I wondered to God why I was so lonely. But I, later, also answered that question myself. "Because I have achieved things that few people have achieved."

I personally chose to separate myself from others, choosing my personal career over relationships or hobbies. While my friends were traveling through the summer, I was busy learning a new language at the library. When my friends came back to Vietnam to visit, I read a mountain of scientific newspapers to prepare for the meeting with the professor. No matter what, that's what I chose. Furthermore, having few friends is also because I choose to invest in quality relationships (but now that those quality relationships are gradually leaving me to have new lives, I have loneliness). When I realized that the loneliness I was feeling through loneliness was my own choice, I started to feel less lonely. Why? Because I started to accept everything that happened to me, I accepted that I was lonely, alone, so lonely that I couldn't even have a close person to confide in.

Then I gradually learned how to truly live alone. On bad days, instead of searching through my contacts to see if there is anyone to confide in, I record my thoughts on my phone, I also talk to myself in the mirror or write it down. On weekends, I often spend an afternoon somewhere to enjoy the feeling of freedom and aloneness. Before, I was very afraid of going alone, I was afraid that someone would see me going alone because to me it showed that I was lonely and had few friends, which I inherently considered bad and a failure. But now I feel light when traveling alone, I'm starting to enjoy it. There will be no shame if someone sees you walking alone. Because basically I'm enjoying it, it's what I like and I just do it.

So, gradually I am learning to live alone, write alone, read alone, study alone, work alone...

P/S: Not very related to the topic but I feel it is necessary to say so I say it in this part. I see many pages online that encourage or worship people who study hard and work hard day and night. But do you know? That journey is only beautiful in the eyes of those who watch it for a few seconds or minutes, but only those who actually experience it for many years know how lonely and difficult it is. But after those thoughts of loneliness and unnecessary hardship, I realized that I must learn to love the process to truly be the lasting solution. If you really don't love learning and force yourself to stick to it your whole life, your whole life will only be full of suffering. Or if you study just because you dream about good results, then when the results are not as you expected (which often happens), you will become miserable afterwards. So friends, don't poison yourself with videos depicting hardship or loneliness when doing something difficult, learn how to change your attitude towards it, your life will change. that much.