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When You Start to Enjoy Being Alone, These 10 Things Will Happen

1. You’ll get to recharge.

Often times when we’re surrounded by other people, we’re expending a lot of energy. Trying to keep others happy, make them laugh, soothe their egos, read their emotions, and all of the other rigors that come along with regular interaction.

It can be mentally draining if you’re constantly connected to other people. A little alone time lets you recharge and take a break from the emotionally and mentally taxing job of constant interaction.

2. You’ll reflect more often.

Your life is always moving at a crazy fast pace. So fast in fact, that it’s probably rare when you have a moment alone to sit and reflect on your life.

Being alone gives you the perfect opportunity for a little self reflection. Since you aren’t spending so much time processing the thoughts and feelings of others, it’s the best time to turn your focus inwards.

Solitude provides the perfect environment for reflection.

3. You’ll get in touch with your own emotions.

Again, when you’re surrounded by other people all the time, you’re constantly trying to read, and cater to, the other persons’s emotions. So much so, that you could end up losing touch with your own.

When you start to enjoy being alone, you’ll gain a greater perspective for your own emotions. You’ll create a deeper understanding of what makes you happy, what upsets you, and what saddens you.

With that knowledge, it’s then easier to regulate your emotions. But it all starts with understanding how you feel, and that comes from a little bit of solitude.

4. You’ll start doing things you actually enjoy.

When you’re constantly in the company of other people, you’re always making compromises in order to find solutions that the entire group can enjoy. And unfortunately, the things you want most, may not always line up with what the group wants.

So it’s easy to enjoy being alone once you realize that doing so gives you more freedom to do the things you actually want to do.

5. You’ll become more productive.

Being in the company of other people can be fun and entertaining, but it can also seriously affect your productivity. There are times when the company of other people acts as nothing more than a distraction from getting your work done.

Time spent alone can be some of the most productive time in your life—mostly because there are less distractions, and you can just put your head down and get to work.

6. You’ll enjoy your relationships even more.

When you spend time alone on a regular basis, and eventually start to enjoy being alone, you’ll come to find that you also enjoy your relationships with other people even more.

And that’s because the time spent alone gives you a greater appreciation for yourself.

But it also let’s you appreciate all the great things that come from your relationships with other people, most of which you were oblivious to before.

7. You’ll feel more independent.

Once you enjoy being alone, you’ll feel more confident in your ability to actually be alone. And that naturally leads to you feeling more independent.

You’ll no longer feel that anxiety, or burning desire for company, once you learn to enjoy being alone. You won’t feel the need for constant interaction with other people, or the anxiety associated with looking around and seeing no one but yourself.

8. You’ll get a break from constantly trying to keep other people happy.

Life is filled with relationships, and most relationships only last when both people are kept happy. And that can turn into a draining job depending who that relationship is with. Now, this does’t only apply to personal relationships, but every kind of relationship.

Once you’re alone, the only person’s happiness you have to worry about in that moment, is your own. You can treat yourself to thing that makes you happy, but may have upset someone else.

9. You won’t have to apologize for anything.

When you start to enjoy being alone, you’ll quickly see that solitude means you don’t have to keep apologizing for what you’ve done. So often, we do things that end up upsetting other people, or hurting someone else’s feelings, and then have to quickly apologize for it.

But when you’re alone, you don’t have to apologize for anything. And that takes a lot of pressure out of most situations. You get to stop second guessing everything you say, or every move you make because you’re afraid someone is going to be offended, or saddened, and angered.

10. You’ll stop looking for validation.

So often we feel we the need to get the “OK” from our friends and family before we take action. We constantly look to other people for advice on what we should do next.

Of course, there are times where it’s not only perfectly acceptable to ask for advice, but downright necessary. But there are also times where we’re perfectly capable of acting on our own, be we instead of looking to others for an answer.

When you start to spend more time alone, you’ll learn to trust your instincts and make decisions without any third party validation.

Source: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communica...

Urquhart Castle | Loch Ness, Scotland

This was taken about two weeks ago while I was traveling through the highlands of Scotland.  I stopped at Loch Ness for the night and took this photo just after the sun had fallen behind the hills to the southwest.  Urquhart Castle was built in the 1100s and changed hands many times through out its history.

Urquhart Castle on Loch Ness in Scotland

Diving for Dinner

Missy Gibson (@missykgibson) diving for dinner while we were hanging out on the Gulf coast of Florida during a 6 week long road trip that started off in San Diego.

Border Relations

Awhile back I rode my bike down to the beach where the U.S./Mexico border fence runs into the Pacific Ocean.  I was hanging out at Border Field State Park when I noticed this kid going back and forth between the two countries as he squeezed through the fence.

Behind the Image - The Narrows

Date: June 3, 2014
Location: The Narrows | Zion National Park | Utah
Camera: Nikon D7000
Lens: Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G
Additional Gear: Lowepro Photo Sport 30L

The photo below was taken about 15 minutes before the sun sank below the rim of the canyon walls. We started running in order to make as much progress as we could before it got dark. The backpacker running in the green shirt is Ryan, he grew up near Zion and was showing me around.  Further in the distance you can barely see my friend Christine, she lives near Zion and we had been trying to coordinate this trip for about 3 years.

The Narrows | Zion National Park | Utah

No snow in Snow Canyon

Last summer I decided to take a trip to Utah to explore Zion National Park.  Over the years I had seen a lot of photos of Zion and decided that I needed to check it out in person.  My original plan was to head out there in 2011 during a 4,000 mile solo road trip I was doing around the southwestern part of the U.S.  Unfortunately I didn't have quite enough time to make it there and had to postpone.  Finally at the end of May 2014 I had a bit of free time so I packed up my Saab wagon and drove from San Diego, CA to Saint George, UT.  After about 6 and half hours I arrived, grabbed dinner, and met with a few locals I had befriended.  The first day there I went on a solo hike to Three Ponds in Snow Canyon State Park.  It was the beginning of June in the Utah desert so there definitely wasn't any snow in Snow Canyon and the 3 ponds turned out to be one small pool of stagnant water which was covered in dead flies.  This was not the most pleasant thing to discover after trekking a few miles through really fine sand in 113°F/45°C heat.

Finding relief in the shade | Snow Canyon

A few days later I met with my new local friends and went to Zion.  We did about a 5 mile hike in the morning that took us around one of the other parts of the park and then we headed to the Narrows after.  I have to say The Narrows was definitely one of the most enjoyable hikes I've done.  Not only is the terrain amazing, but hiking through the cool water in the shade while it's 100+ degrees out makes things much more pleasant.  We probably hiked in about 3 miles and didn't start heading back until the sun was setting.  Being in a canyon after dark was an interesting experience because it was pitch black, luckily I came prepared with my Petzl Headlamp.  The downside to the headlamp was that it attracted a ton of Mayflies that started to circle my head so I eventually just used the headlamp like a regular flashlight.