Why You Need Solitude and How to Have It

To live a full life, you need something that’s rarely mentioned: you need solitude. Here is a definition of solitude from the book Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport.
Time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.
When you look at great people in history, you can see that they have this characteristic in their lives. It takes different forms, but they have time alone with their own thoughts. For Albert Einstein, it was playing music. For Theodore Roosevelt, it was journaling. For Steve Jobs, it was taking long walks.
Let’s see why you need solitude and how to have it.
Why You Need Solitude
There are at least three reasons why you need solitude.
1. It allows you to see the big picture.
We could be so busy with the details of our lives that we can no longer see the big picture. Are we going in the right direction? Or have we gone off track?
Solitude gives you the distance you need to see the big picture. It helps you see the forest and not just the trees.
2. It helps you synthesize creative ideas.
More often than not, creative ideas come from novel combinations of existing ideas. To get the existing ideas, you need to get input from others (for instance, by reading books). But to synthesize them into a novel combination, you need solitude.
3. It helps you be proactive, not reactive.
With solitude, you won’t just react to whatever is happening to you. Instead, you will think through your situation and act proactively to control it.
How to Have Solit...

Source: Life Optimizer - March 15, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Donald Latumahina Tags: Thinking Source Type: blogs