We can’t act baffled when isolation becomes our norm

Loneliness of young people has reached epidemic proportions.

Cigna’s widely cited study is affectionately calling the youngest of the individuals surveyed, the loneliest generation.

That’s absolutely heartbreaking to me. Heartbreaking. And here’s why.

Loneliness is not some mystifying, highly contagious disease that medical professionals have yet to find a cure for. It’s a choice. We may not be conscious that we’re making it, and it may not be an easy one to make, but it’s still a choice.

As my mentor once told me, we are never alone in this world unless we want to be.

Shit, my self imposed loneliness in college was so bad, that during junior year, I started wearing a nametag every single day, just to make friends.

That was twenty four years ago. Haven’t taken it off since. And I have no plans of removing the sticker in the future. It’s a totem that reminds me of one of the only things that is real in this life, human relationships.

They are the core of everything. We’re only a phone call away or a walk across the office away from not being lonely. Our cure is within reach, quite literally.

Which brings us back to this social epidemic. Researchers who conducted the above study used something called the loneliness scale. California psychologists pioneered this resources in the late seventies, and it’s become the industry standard for measuring subjective feelings of social isolation.

It’s been used in an estimated eighty percent of all empirical studies on on the subject. Their scale contains twenty questions, in which respondents indicate if they feel a certain way often, sometimes, rarely or never.

Take a look at these questions and answer them for yourself. You might be surprised what you learn.

• Are you unhappy doing so many things alone?
• Do you have nobody to talk to?
• Are you unable to tolerate being so alone?
• Do you lack companionship?
• Do you feel as if nobody really understands you?
• Do you find yourself waiting for people to call or write?
• Is there no one you can turn to?
• Are you no longer close to anyone?
• Are your interests and ideas not shared by those around you?
• Do you feel left out?
• Do you feel completely alone?
• Are you able to reach out and communicate with those around you?
• Are your social relationships superficial?
• Do you feel starved for company?
• Does nobody really know you well?
• Do you feel isolated from others?
• Are you unhappy being so withdrawn?
• It is difficult for you to make friends?
• Do you feel shut out and excluded by others?
• Are people around you but not with you?

Wow, that’s a lot of looking in the mirror.

And this scale is not the be all end all, but it’s a helpful starting point for a greater understanding of this widespread and distressing experience of loneliness.

The good news is, as mentioned earlier, we are never alone in this world unless we want to be. We can solve our own problem. Rather than bemoaning our own isolation, we should ask ourselves which of our behaviors might be enabling our condition.

Here are a few bad social habits that I’ve personally been guilty of in my own life. See how many of them they connect with you.

If we’re not making the effort to basically date our friends, then our loneliness shouldn’t be surprising to us.

If we’re always telling people, dude, we need to hang out soon and catch up, but then never following through, then loneliness is our fault.

If we’re consistently cancelling plans and bailing on all our commitments with no remorse, then it’s not somebody else’s fault that we are alone.

If we’re clinging to the identity story that we’re forever cursed with social awkwardness and feel weird about making new friends, then having nothing to do on nights and weekends is on us.

If we’re sitting around hoping that one day, by some astrological miracle, our friend’s social calendars will finally align with ours, then we can’t complain about having nobody to cry with when life gets hard.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, if we have convinced ourselves that our smartphone will meet one hundred percent of our fundamental human need for social contact, then we can’t act baffled when isolation becomes our norm.

Maybe wearing a nametag every day doesn’t sound so crazy anymore. 

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
Are you complicit in your own disconnection?