Dear Mom: Research Project
I’m too scared to talk to her alone, so I’m writing this out. Who is her you may ask? She is my Mom. I don’t know how I’d fit all this information in just talking to her so here I am writing a paper for her benefit. So, Mom, this is for you. I don’t understand why you choose to be alone. I see loneliness affect you every day and it hurts me to watch you go through the pain. I see you walking through a movie theatre and every time you see a couple your smile fades, and I know its because you miss that. There are so many resources out there for you Mom. There are dating sights and apps that you could find someone on, but you choose to be alone. It’s not just dating, you isolate yourself from your friends and I want you to be able to have those people there for you in your life. Maybe it’s for your children like you’ve told me before, but maybe its something more. Maybe you can’t move on, but that’s why I’m here to tell you the facts. You need to find someone Mom. You’ll be happier, healthier, the home will be a better environment, and you won’t die at a young age. I need you around for a long time and loneliness doesn’t promise me a longer amount of time. So here you go the reasons you shouldn’t be alone, why you should make friends, and why being together is better.
There are two sides to every story just like there are always different opinions when speaking about one subject. So let me ask a question, how do we find motivation? There are many ways to find it including people, places, or objects we are trying to obtain. Some people are self-driven enough to motivate themselves through everything. I wish I was able to motivate myself and be able to continue my journey with my own will, but for me, I need a push. I need people to help me grow. People are the reason I continue with life. The thing is there are bad people in this world, but there are also good people. So do we let ourselves take a chance to meet bad people amongst the good, and have faith in humanity? Or do we face this harsh world on our own so we are the only ones who guide our fate? There are so many different options to be captured, to experience, but if we choose the ones that make us happiest and end up benefiting us the most we will be able to find the most joy.
In my personal opinion, I think meeting other people will benefit you immensely. You’re usually happier when you’re with your children than when you’re alone, so why not find happiness in another person, or people. I watch and read many things that remind me of you, but the other day I watched a video from Kurzgesagt-In a Nutshell that was titled “Loneliness.” Now, this video didn’t necessarily remind me of you, but I did think it had beneficial information that you may want to hear. There’s a long list of facts about loneliness that include: it makes you age quicker, advances Alzheimers faster, damages your immune system, increases your risk of cancer, it’s 2x as deadly as obesity and just as deadly as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. I understand that you’re an adult and you can't make time to make friends. You had a spouse, children, and your job. The easiest thing to sacrifice is your friends and now your love life, but there’s a way to make time for all of it! Brian Tracy wrote a book on time management called, “Master Your Time, Master Your Life: The Breakthrough System to Get More Results, Faster, in Every Area of Your Life” and in it he talks about how important it is to stay focused on your career like you are, but he also talks about how important relationships are in our lives, “The time you spend with other people, and the way you spent it determines perhaps 85 percent of your happiness, success, or failure in life.” You do not have to always have fun with people and be going on dates, I mean for me, I study at my boyfriend’s house, but being with him is what makes my outlook more positive with the whole experience. I know that you think you’re a strong woman, and you are! But being a “lone wolf” and doing all of this on your own isn’t healthy. Loneliness can become Chronic, and chronic loneliness is one of the most unhealthy things we can experience. When loneliness becomes chronic most people struggle to find themselves not being lonely, and I don’t want to see you have to dig your way out of a deep hole. The best way we can protect ourselves against loneliness is to find friends, keep our social networks open. We have so many ways to socialize through the internet. There are social pages such as Instagram, Facebook, snap chat, Tik-Tok, Tumblr, and so much more! If you don’t keep your social networks open and start excluding people from your life people will start excluding you. I know from personal experience that this happens. When you go through a lonely period and you keep turning people down to do things, soon enough people just stop inviting you to do things. This happens to me during the dance season, I’m so busy with school and dance I make no time for my friends. This is where the time management comes back in, the time we make and spend with the people who mean the most to us is the time that will truly be worth spending.
One thing I have noticed is that people have a hard time dealing with self-image by themselves. As children, we are taught to hate ourselves. We are taught that we can always do better, we can always improve, and that if we didn’t improve in a certain amount of time or way we would fail, but in reality this is not true. Being taught these children and teens especially find it hard to love themselves and be happy with their bodies or appearance because they could possibly be “better.” Kevin Henkes wrote a book called “Chrysanthemum.” I used to read this book in the library while I was in elementary. However, I didn’t take in the true meaning of the book until I was older. This was a children’s picture book, but I never understood the true meaning behind the story until I started thinking about all this loneliness and how to cure it. When we are alone our thoughts get louder, and those judgmental voices in our head can start screaming, but with other’s help, we can start to see the beauty in ourselves. In this book a little mouse, a perfect little mouse was named Chrysanthemum. In the book, at first she loves her name, but later on in the book, people begin to make fun of her. Her classmates say that her name is too long and that she it didn't fit on her name tag. This made the little mouse feel sad. Her parents helped her regain her confidence as well as her teacher. In the end, Chrysanthemum realizes that her name is perfect and that she loves her name. There are two main things we can take out of this text. One being the individual side of the book. Chrysanthemum is very unique in her own way. She learns throughout the book to not care what others think and to love herself for who she is. This is important because the judgment we receive from others can affect our opinion, but if we can push passed that on our own we will be able to have more confidence and self-love. The problem in the book is that Chrysanthemum needs help from her parents and teacher to push passed the judgment. With people telling her to keep going and to stay herself she was able to push past the bullying and find who she truly was. People can make the biggest difference in our lives if we let them help and let them in.
However, some people are better alone. They work harder and are able to think more clear mindedly if they are alone, but you do not stay alone to think. Many people stay alone because they are scared of losing people, or do not want to meet new people. I heard a quote by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi that said, “The best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile. Optimal experience is thus something that we make happen.” If you can push your own mind, and stretch your own body to your limits that’s great, but research has been done that proves if we have others around us we can stretch further and accomplish more. Mark A. Smith performed an experiment on rats to prove just this. The experiment was done to prove drug addiction could be cured through connections and almost a peer pressure by others. The experiment was to give a rat drugged water. Water with cocaine in it. I know you’re not addicted to drugs, but just hear me out. Instead of giving the rat just one water with the cocaine, they gave it water without and water with cocaine. The rat immediately picked the drugged water, craving the drug more than water itself. They tried two different types of socialization with these drug-addicted rats. When they put them with other drug-addicted rats the rats would still go for the drugs, but when they put the addicted rats with more "naive" rats, they were able to socialize the whole experiment without using the drug. This experiment shows us many views of individual strength and strength with others. When we have others in our lives they can help us, or hurt us. It’s hard to open up to people and want to make connections when there are those “drug-addicted rats” out there, but there is also “naive rats” out there. Those people who will help you meet your goals and get over your obstacles. There is always pros and cons when being with other people, but I hope you will be able to meet someone you want to be with. A woman in New York named Louise Signore at age 107 said that she lived so long because she never got married. She believed that the stress of a committed relationship didn’t affect her and also she drank many a diet coke. And there will always be these other opinions although science has proven otherwise. Even just remembering a time you were with someone and how happy you were, that convinces me immediately that life can be better when we have someone to be together with.
It’s a lot of information to take in, but my ending request is to reach out, and to let people touch you. If it’s through social networks and apps where you talk to people that’s just one way to socialize with those around us, but personally, I recommend socializing in person. Get to know those around you better, and allow yourself to make friends and acquaintances. Life’s scary and there will always be people out there to hurt us, but that doesn’t mean the good people who will help our lives aren’t out there. If you hadn’t met your spouse you wouldn’t have your children. If you didn’t meet and talk to the people in your workplace your job would be a living hell. Sporting team wouldn’t exist if people didn’t communicate and love one another! Let those around you help build your confidence and self-image up. Let those around you assist you in meeting your goals and climbing over your obstacles. Communicate to live a longer healthier life. No one wants to fall into chronic loneliness, depression, or have suicidal thoughts. No one wants to feel angry at the world, so find the joy in others. Allow other people to be the way you see the world differently and appreciate more of what’s around you. Commitment can be scary, but you don’t have to commit just yet. Just make time. Make time in your busy life to be able to meet people and keep relationships going. Learn to use that time you have with other people in a positive and productive way. And never forget to love yourself. Of course, having other people around will help you see how amazing and wonderful you are, but self-love, knowing that you are the only you will make you truly happy when you do have those days when no one is there to lift you up.