Happiness is an inside job

My defends on "spending time alone"..in progress.

Is spending your time alone selfish? Why is that such an important question? I was going through a passion affirmation class at church, a gathering that was started from the business world to understand individuals so that, as assets to the company, they will be able to channel their passion in their work, and how to see them as a person instead of a someone to finish such and such project. (Hmm..I wonder if they stole the individuality concept from my Boss...)

While discussing about what I love to "do" and listening to what other members in the group love to "do", I heard myself saying that I love to spend some of my time alone. Everyone has their owns share of wanting to be alone, and I know when it's imbalance with their social time, it became unhealthy. I saw the tendencies from things that I love to do: write, read, yoga, working with plants, all of those were alone time. I saw these things as counterbalance of what I do in daily basis. I work with people and I interact with people more than one third of my days, so may be I do need my alone time.

What would my Boss do? He had his alone time, most of the time, to pray, to meditate, to fast. He even spent 40 days in the wilderness, alone, except that satan could not leave him alone.

Jack Kerouac, one of my favorite writers, also said that being in solitude (being alone is completely different than being lonely) could cultivate our kindness, endurance, utterly loving all life, and to be sincere with everyone, in our madness modern world. He concluded his writings and his "movement" with the beatitude teaching from my Boss, that later on, was followed as the "beat" generation, which most of the time was misinterpreted.

Be alone, sometimes, just remember that someone won't let you to be completely alone (as what my Boss experienced), so, beware. And keeping the balance of alone time and time spent with others is the key. Nothing out of proportion is good for the soul.