"your own company is enough"—or it's something sad. Something that means you've failed somehow, that you're waiting for someone to rescue you from yourself.

But what if being alone is just... being alone? What if it doesn't have to mean anything except that right now, in this moment, you're by yourself? 🌙

I spend a lot of time in my own head. Probably too much, depending on who you ask. I think about conversations I've had, words I've said, moments where I could have been more honest and wasn't. I replay things. I analyze things. I wonder if people were sincere with me or if they were just performing.

And here's what I've discovered: being alone doesn't fix that. You bring yourself with you into solitude. 💫

If you're the kind of person who tends to doubt people, being alone won't make you trust more. If anything, it gives your doubt more space to grow. You sit there, and you think about all the ways people have been dishonest, and you start to wonder if everyone is just acting all the time. You start to see insincerity as the default and sincerity as the exception.

But then sometimes I'll be alone and I'll think about a moment—a real moment—where someone said something and meant it, and I could feel the difference. I could feel the honesty in the room like it was a physical thing. And I realize that my ability to recognize sincerity exists because I've experienced it. I know what it feels like because I've felt it before.

So maybe being alone isn't about finding yourself or losing yourself. Maybe it's about learning to sit with your own thoughts long enough to figure out which ones are actually true and which ones are just fear talking. 💭

The scary part is that sometimes you can't tell the difference until you're actually with someone again. You can think alone for weeks and believe you've figured everything out, and then one conversation with someone real can change your entire perspective.

But that's not a weakness. That's just being human.

I don't think I'm afraid of being alone anymore. I think what I'm actually afraid of is being with someone while still being alone—being with someone who isn't actually there, who's just going through the motions. That's loneliness with an audience, and it's worse than the quiet kind.

Do you know the difference between being alone and feeling lonely, or are they the same thing for you?