Why Personal Growth Matters Even When You’re Alone

Why should I change myself to become better if I have nobody in my life? This is a two-pronged question. Because when we say “better,” what do we really mean? And that word, better, means two things to the person who asked this question.

Better in the sense of, “I want to feel better. I want my mind to stop fighting me. I want to be happier, healthier, and better in all of those senses.”The second sense is better, meaning, morally speaking.

And we’ll address both because they do go hand in hand.

We could wonder, why should I work on myself if I’m alone, when I could simply give in completely to addiction or escapism through entertainment, or losing myself in my work? Why bother meditating, eating right, doing yoga, spending time outdoors, being active, and meeting new people?

And the second part of this question is, why should I become a better person to others if I am by myself? Why should I be kinder, more patient, a better listener, more honest, more generous, and more compassionate?

The very beautiful thing about spirituality is that we take this holistic viewpoint. So these two concepts are one and the same. 

The reason we work on ourselves is so we can be better to others, including ourselves as well. One of the reasons we practice compassion and kindness is because of how enriching it is for ourselves. So, let’s first start with the latter, and then work our way back to the former, and then talk about how they are interconnected and feed off of each other.

When we are practicing compassion towards others, and as we practice self-love, healing, and personal growth, when it comes to becoming a better person towards others, no person is an island. No one completely lives alone, with no interaction with other people.

I’ve met many sadhus and monks who would meditate for years in solitude in a cave. Yet, someone would bring them food daily. We are truly interconnected beings. If you’re reading this, it tells me you are not that rare person living in the forest, completely cut off from everyone, completely living off the land, and truly alone and away from humans.

Everything in this universe is deeply interconnected. And little actions can have drastic consequences and large ripple effects that spread out in every direction. It’s very difficult to have some action taken that has no consequences. Because if you look into it, almost every single action that anyone takes affects themselves in a way that changes them.

When they interact with other people, they are fundamentally different because they have gone through some kind of event, which, as hard as they try to keep secret from everyone else, subtly affects that person in some way. Then that person may respond differently to someone else, which further changes that person.

That’s the best-case scenario where we are trying to do something and no one sees, and no one’s around. But most of the time, we’re doing something, someone else is around, and someone else is affected. And that ripple effect gets much more powerful.

When we are selfish, if we are impatient or unkind, our interactions with people will more likely be negative and confrontational. Those ripple effects, which spread out in every direction of this universe, inevitably make the universe a more negative, confrontational place.

You might get in a fight with someone, and that person may later get in a fight with their spouse or a child, because they have taken on that combative and stressful encounter. Then that kid or spouse will take on that traumatic experience, and they will have to spend time healing that process, or not, and passing on more anger and confrontation.

 

1. Nurture Your Compassion

When we nurture compassion — when we nurture our generosity and loving-kindness, which is possible — the more we learn this, the more we practice it, the more we meditate and visualize this feeling of love and compassion for everyone, the more our interactions become positive and joyful. And the more they fill us up with that love for life, instead of draining us and taking it away.

That creates a ripple effect. People pass love on. When we have that mindset of patience and contentment, when we’re fully present — not worrying or stressing, just flowing with the universe — we’re more likely to have many more of these positive and uplifting experiences, creating a more positive universe that reflects back at us from the impact we’ve made.

Because when we are that example, everyone around us becomes affected by that. Then everyone around all of those people becomes affected by those people. Even though it can be subtle and nuanced, these little acts — these ways that we take care of our mind so that we can be fully present for others — this is the only way the world changes.

You may be alone right now, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be alone forever. And the more you tap into that wellspring of universal love, which is in all of us and is infinitely deep, the more likely it is that our encounters with strangers become so joyful and so meaningful that they want to spend time with you, and you want to spend time with them.

Some people are more introverted, and some people are more extroverted. We always have to listen to our own hearts, because we’re all different. But at the end of the day, we are social animals. Even if it’s two introverts sitting in silence together, that sharing of space and energy is so healing and so powerful that it is one of the main causes for people to live into very old age. And if solitude is where you heal, that is perfectly fine.

There are many monks who live in solitude, many mystics and holy men and women who have found a great source of peace there. But if you nurture that feeling of love and compassion within you, and if you are just bursting with love and joy, and everyone you meet just wants to be basking in your glow, you may find yourself no longer alone.And you’ll be very glad that you practiced how to be gracious and at peace, so that you can enjoy the company of others. You can enjoy alone time as well, because you have created a life that is more about giving to others than being self-centered or self-conscious. And this is very easy to do.

 

2. Align Your Actions With Your Intentions

The second thing we can do is something that is very common in Hinduism and Buddhism, which is: they have these precepts or vows that they all take — monks and ashram members — in order to create a more peaceful, harmonious life. The way they do that is with their actions, thoughts, and words in alignment with their intentions.

When there is disunity — when we are addicted to something and we want to stop, but we can’t and we keep doing it over and over again — it creates that disunity and inner turmoil, because our actions are not aligned with our intentions. Even our thoughts are betraying us. So what they take a vow for is to live honestly and make an honest living, to never lie, to never steal, and to never harm another living being.

While they have more vows and precepts beyond these, just these alone will really help us to find balance and live without fear — fear of getting caught, fear of someone taking revenge on you. And it frees you, because when you are not harming anyone, then you have a freedom that arises to do as you wish, because you are not harming anyone. So the more you do, the better.

Wherever you go, if you make situations better, people will treat you the way you treat them. Life dramatically improves when we simply give our fellow humans our own time and attention — to be fully present with them, and to have the generosity and kindness to hold space with them, to allow them to be. And in doing so, they allow you to be. And two souls are helping each other be more authentically themselves, so they can blossom into the people they were meant to be.

The amount of ripple effects from treating everyone like the magical beings they are becomes so great that you are constantly surrounded by love and joy from others. When you become the engine of kindness, it is like you are starting that engine of kindness in everyone around you. You will be spreading this joy contagion to others, and they will spread it right back to you.

It will build and build and build, and then you’ll look back and you will be amazed at the joyous life you have created.

 

3. Do Inner Work

Now, the third way that we become better and better ourselves is through that inner work. And that is the work of meditation, mindfulness, being more present in our daily lives, getting rid of our stress in a healthy and productive way instead of trying to escape it through drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc. It’s getting physically healthy, not just spiritually and mentally, which means eating whole foods that come from nature, and getting our bodies moving.

So why should we do that? Why should we try to do the right thing? That’s hard if we are alone, and nobody will be there to see our progress or praise us or notice our change.

Well, the answer to that is: if your mind is creating nothing but joy, and you feel deeply grateful and blessed and wonderful, and there is not a problem in the world, then you are probably not asking this question.

But if your mind is generating suffering, if something feels like it’s missing in your life, if you feel like there is something more to the work-play-sleep cycle of life, if you feel that there is potential to experience this life in a more beautiful and profound way, then that inner work is there for us.

Even though that inner work will certainly make you kinder to the clerk at the grocery store or the barista at the coffee shop, and even though it can bring meaning to those moments where we interact — which, again, science has shown, those little moments of human interaction (a waiter, a bank teller) — those moments are very healing and very fulfilling. And people report how much it brightens their day when a stranger compliments their outfit or shoes, or when someone has a conversation with a stranger on the street.

But the real reason we do that inner work is because we recognize that all suffering stems from the mind.

To prove that that is true, here’s a little thought experiment: let’s say you have a situation where a person gets robbed. And that person gets angry and sad and furious that this happened. Now, take that same person in the same situation, but let’s just say he’s high on drugs. I think we’ll see that, because his mind is different, he can be totally fine with his stuff being stolen — might not even notice.

But the beauty is that inner work changes our mindset — not in a way that dulls our senses, but in a way that heightens them. That raises our awareness to the point where we recognize that the anger does not serve us. That the anger doesn’t get our stuff back. And that it only hurts us, raises our blood pressure, gives us a panic attack, constricts our blood vessels, causes back pain and shoulder pain, and all of those stress-related chronic pains.

With that inner work, we can all change our mind — and in a way that increases our wisdom. Because we are practicing raising our awareness. It’s awareness and observation that are the foundation for wisdom. That is why every scientific field involves observation. Scientific study is observation. So the more we practice witnessing our thoughts, we become deeply knowledgeable about how our mind works — so that we get to a place where we’re not lost in our thoughts, we’re witnessing our thoughts.

And we can get to a place where we practice so much that we let go of the past, we let go of the future, and we’re able to sit in the present and enjoy the moment

Many people will try and spend their whole lives chasing after some pleasure in order to avoid the here and now. And they make their entire life a chase. It’s constantly having to go from pleasure to pleasure, entertainment to entertainment, distraction to distraction. Or they find out, when they have to finally sit with themselves and their thoughts, that they cannot stand to be with themselves because they have neglected themselves.

If you try your whole life chasing addictions, you eventually may come to discover that it is an empty, meaningless, futile attempt to avoid this one precious, beautiful life that we were given. That inner work is simply turning our attention inward. Giving that attention and space to ourselves. Allowing ourselves to be, to heal, to process any kind of trauma, any kind of situation we’ve been through in our lives. 

To do those things that are slightly difficult now, but build up our happiness over time — our lasting, permanent level of happiness, our baseline. Because there are two things we do in life: there are the pleasures that are easy and effortless, and they give you a dopamine rush and boost all your happiness chemicals for a brief, fleeting moment, like chocolate cake or alcohol. 

And then, once that pleasure wears off, there is pain — withdrawal, hangover, sugar crash — and always followed by more craving, more longing, and more desires. Never satisfied. When we do that work, it’s about loving ourselves enough to invest in ourselves, in our future selves, in our lasting happiness, and in that great, audacious goal that we’re all put here to find, which is: a life of purpose, presence, and peace.

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