More and more people are living alone today. An estimated 1 in 4 people in the United States are making a home on their own.

There are lots of advantages to living alone – no one to fight for the remote, no one to judge you if you want to eat a baloney sandwich in your underwear in the middle of the night – but it can also get lonely if you’re not sure how to use being alone into your own advantage! Keep reading to learn how to make the most of being alone.

But remember one thing first:

ALONENESS is NOT the same as LONELINESS

1. Try not to expect too much from people

A simple and most effective way to remain happy and satisfied. People in the world are not there to fulfil our expectations, yet we expect to much from them. We each live our own lives.

What are the consequences of expecting too much?

– The more we expect the more likely we are going to stay alone

– We, human beings, are not and will never be perfect. We each have our own mistakes and will always be different. That’s the beauty. Accept people with their good and bad sides (it really depends how bad).

– We can be easily disappointed and hurt. What you have, other may lack. And what other person has, you may lack. Always search good in person.

2. Find a purpose in life

This is the most important aspect of living alone. If you do not have a purpose in life, you might be able to live alone but you will never be satisfied.

If you don’t have a purpose in life you won’t be happy in any other situation. You can have a family and many friends but without your own purpose life will feel useless.

Now, what kind of purpose? I have seen people with the only purpose to earn huge amount of money or to have as many partners as possible, or have a fleet of luxury cars or any other such thing.

Remember my friend, these things won’t give you true and long-lasting satisfaction. When we change someone’s life in a positive way, that gives us real satisfaction.

Therefore, have a purpose in life that’ll give happiness and meaning to your life.

You can achieve this by first maintaining your character and integrity in the toughest situations and also help others to do the same and educating them.

You can create something of your own like art or designing, or even maybe sewing. Or maybe even start your own blog. Believe me, it is an amazing feeling to have your own blog, even if you only helped one person with it.

Find something that suits your needs and something you enjoy doing, gather your tools and let’s begin!

3. Help other individuals as much as you can

Believe it, you guys, it has been proven in many experiments that helping another person or doing someone a favor makes us much happier than the other way around.

Knowing that you made a better day for someone else makes your day, too. And that is why many lonely and depressed people actively started to help people every day in various ways. They found it to be their true purpose in life that improved their situation drastically.

4. Take advantage of this opportunity, being alone gives you more time to make a change in life.

Hooray for that!

Create goals for yourself: strive for mastery and abundance. Put in 10,000+ hours at something and get great at it. Teach others, publish it on the internet, there are so many options.

There has to be something you want to learn and be good at it. Time is your best friend, my friend.

Or focus your energy on building a business. It’s hard to struggle when you’ve got more money than you know what to do with.

5. Adopt a pet

You can, of course, adopt a pet to alleviate loneliness, maintain good friendships. Studies show that people with pets are healthier and live longer lives. Having a pet can actually lower your blood pressure.

Personally, I feel that if I had owned a dog earlier in my life I might not have been in so many wrong relationships which happened because of my fear of being alone (which is totally cured now, by the way).

Having a dog can also be a nice opportunity to meet other people while walking the dog. (warning – don’t own the dog just for the sake of it because dog deserves your love and you’re responsible for having a happy healthy dog, not just the happy you, okay?).

Not everyone is a dog person. Some prefer cats or other pets. Some people don’t like pets at all, so that won’t be an option for you if that’s the case.

6. Get to know yourself

You can also use this as an opportunity to pursue spiritual progress and meditation, or you may start drawing (many people find a passion for drawing which makes them happy, even in their older years).

The point is, you have an awesome opportunity and extra time to learn new things, to get to know yourself better and to simply enjoy aloneness (which does NOT equal loneliness). Read books, keep a journal, start doing sports, enjoy life itself!

Sometimes being alone is the best thing if you let it be.

7. Do the things you wouldn’t normally do in the presence of others

Yes, I am saying be a little ‘weird’, do crazy stuff. Paint the whole wall and if you don’t like it, paint it white and then paint it again. Wake up the artist inside you. Do some amazing art projects at your house, build something, start a collection, …

When I’m home alone (YAY for those days) I put on my most unusual clothes or something I don’t normally wear, turn on some crazy wild (also weird) music and dance like I don’t have a single care in this world. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. I need those days because they help me relax without caring what other people might think. They help me not to think about the stressful things we have in our everyday lives.

8. Just don’t play the role of victim because you’re not one. Help those who truly are.

Yes, it sucks to feel lonely but rather than feeling sorry for yourself, you should look to ways to occupy your time and make a difference in your life. Give yourself time. Love yourself first.

The best is to volunteer your time, which I’m assuming you have lots of, to various causes available in your neighborhood. Pick something you are most comfortable with i.e. animals, homeless, elderly, children – most of these organizations could do with all the help they can get and you’d be helping a lot of people by volunteering your time and effort to them.

So make a plan, my friend. 

Where to begin? Start going for walks in nature. If you’re not used to those, you’ll be surprised how quickly can they crawl into your system. Go outside, walk in the forest and enjoy the sound of it.

Take time to think and to write down your plan.

Join some classes like a cooking class, gardening class, join a gym … anything that comes to your mind and is in your area. You never know when you’ll meet someone, and I don’t mean a new romantic relationship. It may simply be the beginning of a nice friendship. Just don’t try to look like someone who is desperate for a new relationship, it drives people away, you know?

You won’t be alone forever. Unless you want to or aren’t willing to do anything about it.

Even if you decide to stay alone for the rest of your life, it doesn’t have to be a lonely life. It can be a fun adventurous life full of activities and the people you love.

I know people who are in a relationship and surrounded by people every day but they couldn’t be any lonelier, which is quite sad. They would be better off alone if you ask me.

Follow the suggestions above and make the best out if your alone time. For those of you who are single, this one is coming from my experience – Once you do start a new relationship, you’ll wish you took more advantage out of your aloneness when you still had the chance.

Don’t stress about it. Enjoy it as much as you can!

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