I didn’t go to the liberal arts college of my dreams because I didn’t want to take on tens of thousands of dollars in debt, which meant years later, I could quit my desk job, emotionally recharge with a yearlong stint as a barista, and then pick up and move to France to pursue a more creative life because I didn’t have rude debt repayments tapping me on the shoulder every month. 

But sometimes, I play the long game too hard, always working for what’s to come and how great things will be when I get there instead of focusing on where I am now. 

Yes, I have my moments of being present. On a recent train trip home to Paris, for example, I marveled at the luxury of enjoying a cappuccino while reading in a near-empty restaurant car with a green landscape whizzing past me. But these moments, I admit, can be rather fleeting. Then I’m back to making my to-do lists, thinking about what lies ahead in the next weeks, or just daydreaming about where I’ll be a year from now, even though I spent all this effort to get where I am right now. 

I am Sisyphus and, at once, Zeus, creating my own boulders to push up the hill. 

Living like this does have its advantages. I credit my meager repertoire of academic and professional accomplishments to long-term thinking and planning ahead. But it’s not always fun. And it’s possibly holding me back in other ways I don’t always realize, like thinking happiness is something I have to work towards and achieve instead of letting myself feel right now. 

I’m working on it, though. Like this: 

Making time to do the things I want to do now, not later

I’ve been working as a professional writer for the last 10 years. I’ve wanted to write a blog for the last 10 years, too. I didn’t. I was always too busy, or I didn’t have the right ideas, or I was too nervous to put myself out there. 

I didn’t start this blog until two years ago; and it was not joyful. As always, I was thinking too far ahead, about anything but writing, really. I wanted an intricate website, a roster of guest writers I commissioned, and an elaborate social media presence. I had turned an interest into a task, and (unsurprisingly) it sucked all the fun out of it. 

So in the last few months, I’ve forced myself to stop thinking ahead. I deleted all of A Merry Loner’s social media accounts (there are too many interesting things to do instead of social media, anyway), stripped the website to bare bones, and made myself sit down to write with just a pen, notebook, and what’s going on in my head. Rather than making writing another task that needs to fight for priority on my to-do list, I just started making time for it because I want to. 

And who could have predicted that doing things you enjoy makes the days better? 

Stopping the search for “it”

You know what “it” is. We all have an “it” (perhaps several), those covetable, cure-all will o’ the wisps that we’re sure would soothe all our ailments (both of the heart and of the mind) if we could just make them ours. 

More money, so we’ll have no worries and all the trinkets we desire. More time, to pursue all of our passions. More friends, so we are never lonely. More romance, so we feel unique and cherished. More beauty, so people treat us better and the mirror is an admirer, not an enemy. 

These are just some of the bigger and more obvious “its,” but the smaller and more specific can be just as consuming. Even silly, everyday objects (like a new pair of shoes or a perfect notebook) can take on a fateful sense of power. With these shoes, we will look more sophisticated. With that notebook, we will be brilliant. 

But the search for “it” merely postpones our happiness, pushing it further and further away. Even when we do obtain “it,” it is just replaced by yet another, more perfect “it.” To stop waiting to be happy, we have to stop waiting on “it” and accept that “it” will never really be enough.

Not looking at what other people are doing

It’s hard to be happy when you think everyone else is better than you. But it’s easy to think that way when you’re constantly looking at the world through rose-colored glasses — at everyone else’s worlds, that is.

Like when you see a beautiful person in line at the coffee shop, wearing clothes you admire but believe you, yourself, could never “pull off.” Or when you hear so-and-so got a raise and a promotion, while you live in fear of the next round of Big Tech lay-offs. Or whenever you wonder how everyone in your circle seems to be constantly traveling and also eating out all the time and also buying new cars and generally spending money that it feels like somehow everyone else has except for you.

It’s not easy to be happy when you’re living like that, which is why my philosophy for learning how to stop waiting to be happy is turning out quite like my philosophy for learning how to stop wanting things: stop looking. Stop looking ahead at what you need to do and where you wish you could be. Stop looking behind at all your mistakes and what you wish you could undo. Stop looking next door at what everyone else is doing and how you do or don’t measure up. 

When you stop looking and longing and reaching and waiting, you can suddenly start being. And I’m realizing, it was never really that difficult after all. 

I realize happiness isn’t a switch we can just turn on. Sometimes, before we can even think about feeling happy, we need to cross the first bridge of simply getting through a difficult time. Often, reaching out to friends helps, even if you consider yourself an introvert who wants to retreat when the going gets tough. Other times, we need some space to ourselves, even if you consider yourself an extrovert who avoids alone time. This guide offers advice for both. 

For everyone, though, there’s one thing I would encourage you to retreat from (at least some of the time): social media. Spending time offline, I find, is one of the best ways to find more quiet in daily life and just feel better.

Here’s ​how I quit social media​. I hope doing so gives you the same peace of mind and extra time it gave me. (Use it to do something that makes you happy right now.)

The post How to Stop Waiting to Be Happy appeared first on A Merry Loner.

I moved to France (Toulouse, specifically) one year after the 2020 zenith of the COVID-19 pandemic. I was 24, very in love, and ready to get a redo on what had been a rather lackluster university experience in the USA. Now, I’m almost 30, master’s degree in hand for two years now, and married for four. 

Considering I moved out at 21, I’ve spent more of my independent adult life overseas than in my native country. At times, life has felt easier than those of the contemporaries I’ve left behind and, at others, much harder. But I have never regretted my choice. 

Living outside of your home country is a funny thing. People like to argue about the differences between words like “immigrant” and “expat” and who has the right to be where. Some other foreigners I’ve met abroad never stop speaking about their homeland and the many ways in which it’s superior to where they are now. Others are positively ashamed of their country of origin. To both, I say, “Nobody gets to decide where they’re born.” To judge people — and, worse, fill in the blanks for their personality and beliefs — based on where they’re from is not only unkind; it’s nonsensical. 

Just as living in the same small town for your whole life doesn’t make you uneducated and small-minded, traveling the world and living abroad doesn’t make you worldly, cultured, or intelligent.

I don’t claim to be any of these (though my self-respect would pipe up with a defense for the latter). But after living 24 years in the same small town and then five in a new-to-me continent, I do feel I’ve learned a thing or two. Here are three of them: 

No matter where you are, you can always be yourself

I have been known to dress a bit flamboyantly. Even to my old desk job, I sported white pleather go-go boots and a 1970s Civil Air Patrol unisex jumpsuit (sometimes simultaneously). But when I venture into uncharted territory, I hold back. 

For my first French classes at the Alliance Française in Toulouse and then for my first university classes at Université Toulouse – Jean Jaurès, I dressed to be inoffensive and unassuming: a demure black sweater, jeans, and combat boots. It wasn’t until the surroundings became familiar, less daunting, and, in a way, smaller that I let my personality become bigger and my wardrobe, more daring. 

This tendency extended beyond textiles into most daily interactions. I spoke less frequently and at a lower volume. I smiled less. I didn’t talk to strangers. I was quick to assume I was wrong. And if someone was rude to me, I turned the other cheek instead of responding with usual feistiness. 

It took me many years of living in a different country to start acting like myself again, to lose the feeling of ongoing deference and self-doubt, and to remember what should never have been location-dependent: I always have the right to be myself. 

It’s okay to change your mind

Before I took off with a one-way ticket to Paris, my dad pulled me aside and said: “I know you’ve been dreaming about doing this for a year, but if you get there and realize you don’t like it after, you can just come back. It’s not embarrassing. You don’t need to stick it out.” 

Embarrassment, now that’s a universal human feeling. Sometimes, when we have big ideas, we fail to act on them or even voice them for fear of losing face if those ideas don’t work out. But it’s okay to try something and fail. It’s also okay to try something and then just change your mind, no matter what it looks like from the outside. 

This is a conversation I’ve had with many fellow foreigners living abroad. Having the chance to comfortably move to a new country (particularly, a rich country) is a huge privilege. But that doesn’t mean you have to like it. I have a friend who’s been on a mission to move out of the USA, so she and her wife moved to a Western European country a couple of years ago. They don’t intend to stay. Set on the idea of living abroad, though, they went on a tour, visiting neighboring countries as candidates for a new home. 

Still, nothing they saw felt right. Turns out, their checklist for an ideal place to live was matched most closely by their native country, rather than their overseas fantasy. 

Things really are that different

When I came to France to study the first time in 2017, I braced myself for the challenges of living without my mother tongue. That was incredibly naive. 

While, of course, it was uncomfortable navigating the bank, the hairdresser, and the fast food joint in French, my social life was almost entirely in English. With friends from Poland, Czechia, and Mexico, I made jokes about “Friends” and “Totally Spies” and “The Big Lebowski.” With others from Italy and Germany, I screeched the words to Britney Spears’s “Toxic” and Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.” Naive to the intensity of American hegemony, I was surprised that these American 2000s pop culture staples turned out to just be staples. 

It’s another side effect of the Internet and social media. Texting via Facebook Messenger, renting rooms via Airbnb, and following directions via Google can make the whole overseas experience feel comfortably domestic — but deceptively easy. Over time, I’ve come to realize the familiar ease of an “international” language and app-led reservations is a superficial layer that’s only screen deep. Beneath, lie the many unspoken, unseen differences that usually reveal themselves once one or both parties feels insulted, rebuffed, or confused. A short example: 

I remember a former American roommate complimenting my “I statements,” a technique from Nonviolent Communication (NVC) where you express your own feelings instead of commenting on others’ actions. But to my Eastern husband who wasn’t assigned Rosenberg’s reading in college or raised in a culture that prizes individuality, these statements weren’t exactly a sign of healthy emotional intelligence. “It’s always ‘I’ with you. ‘I feel this’ or ‘I feel that,’” is a paraphrase of how he understood my NVC conflict strategies during one squabble. 

We both spoke the “international” language. We both grew up watching “The Lion King” and “Shrek.” We both remember the hipster, craft beer craze of the 2010s. But that top layer of shared pop culture references masks deeper stratums that make up two very different worldviews.

Often, living in a foreign country can remind us how small the world is and how different people from different walks of life are, at the end of the day, more alike than different. But just as we shouldn’t fill in the blanks for who people are based on where they’re from, we shouldn’t assume we understand someone completely based on a few shared ideas.

Wherever you go, remember yourself

Traveling reveals much to ourselves about our identities; the longer the travel, the more is revealed. But however far you wander and for however long you settle, take care not to lose yourself along the way. 

Just because your surroundings change, it doesn’t mean your personality needs to, too. Pushing yourself to try new things is almost always worthwhile, but that doesn’t mean you always have to like it. And new knowledge should never embolden you so much that you forget to remember all you still don’t know. 

If you want the experience of stepping outside of your world but are hesitant to move forward, read I Don’t Like Traveling Alone — But I Keep Doing It Anyway, What I Learned Traveling the World Without My Partner, and How to Stop Being Scared of Traveling Alone. 

Then, remember why it’s important to enjoy your own company, no matter where you go.

The post Learnings from Five Years Living in a Different Country appeared first on A Merry Loner.

That’s all relatively understandable; I can be a bit of a snob. But what I don’t understand is people calling me pretentious for reading books. Yes. Somehow, it seems, reading books has become a tennis-like activity: one for the educated upper middle class who have time and money (and wool sweaters) on hand. 

Why is it like this? 

Reading is literally free. With the Internet and e-books and audiobooks (if that’s your thing), it’s never been easier to access a book. So if reading has fallen from an everyday activity to a once-a-year event, I think it’s time to admit we are the only thing standing in our way. 

But the good news is, you can change things about your life whenever you want. You can even start today. And reading more is always an admirable pursuit. Here’s how to start doing it every day: 

Stop trying to make it special

I once met someone at a book club who said he managed to start reading more by treating it as a daily activity instead of a special event. “Reading is now like eating for me,” is more or less what he said. “It’s just something I do.” 

I think he’s right. In the times of my life when I read less, it was, indeed when I made it a special activity. I had to be in a café or other cozy environment. I had to have a cup of tea. I had to have at least an hour to dedicate to reading. 

This is just not feasible every day — at least not for me, and probably not for most people. 

To make reading a daily habit, some people suggest you “stack” it with other habits so it’s baked into your routine. This doesn’t work for me, either. I am not a robot; my days are often very different from one to the next, and I can’t always commit to reading when I wake up or before bed or during lunch. 

So instead of trying to set the perfect conditions for reading, be it in a cozy café or a morning ritual, I just make sure to read every day. Even just a little. Even for five minutes. I just do it. 

We can all do this. Just like we all adopted the habit of reaching for our phones (and social media) whenever we have a moment of downtime, we can make it a habit to reach for a book. (It’s free.) 

Always keep a book with you

This is crucial to making reading an everyday habit. After all, why do we reach for social media whenever we have a moment of downtime? Because the phone is always there. 

What if a book were always there, too? 

I keep one in my bag and never leave the house without it. (The few times I haven’t, I find, are always when I wish I had it.) Then, it is always easy to make reading something you do every day because there is (almost) always some point in the day when you are waiting for something. The bus. In the grocery line. At the dentist’s office. At school pick-up. At the restaurant before your friend arrives. 

Remember, the key is to not wait for a long moment. Five minutes is enough. Just pull out your book; it’s waiting for you right where you left off. 

Read with other people

I joined a book club this year. It’s my first. And I’ve already read more books this year than I have the last. 

There have been a lot of positive effects of joining a book club, but mostly, it’s been making me finish books faster. Rather than juggling multiple books at once, getting distracted, and sometimes losing the momentum altogether when life gets busy, knowing I have a book club meeting on the calendar keeps me focused. 

It’s also made me read more, quantitatively. Alongside the selection for the club, I have my own reading list I’m interested in, so I’m actually reading double time. 

Besides, being a part of a book club is just fun. There’s probably already one where you live. If not, there are many online these days. Or if you’re trying to live a more analog life without defaulting to the Internet for everything, you can just start one. Truly. The book club I’m a part of was just started by a woman who had a stack of books she wanted to read and needed some commitment to keep her going. You can do it, too. 

Try different genres

One thing that is very pretentious about me is (or was) my reading taste. 

For many years, I went through this phase where I felt I could only read books about history or political science; if I did read novels, they had to be “literature.” Unsurprisingly, I was reading less than I ever had before, for while War and Peace is certainly an interesting and worthwhile read, it’s not exactly a page-turner. 

But about two years ago, I made a pointed effort to change. I rediscovered novels and reading with “no point” — that is, not to learn something but just to enjoy it. And what do you know? My numbers went up. I started reading again daily because I was gripped by the story and had to find out what happened. I still like reading about history (biographies, actually, are my favorite thing to read), but I no longer restrict myself to titles I think will help me better myself. (Any kind of reading, I’ve decided, helps you better yourself.) 

So explore. Find out what kinds of books you like. Try something new. Some of the best I’ve read this year are: Yellowface, Careless People, Waiting for Bojangles, and This Rescue Thing. Some of my all-time favorites are: Desperate Romantics, Magnificent Obsession, The Crucible, and The Picture of Dorian Gray.

If you’re ambitious (or just want to feel like you’re making progress soon), try one of these books short enough to read in a day. I also love reading memoirs; these I find particularly inspiring. Or sometimes we’re simply in a mood where we need to read and sit quietly with our existential dread.

Finally, newspapers are a great way to get back into reading. This is why I’ve started reading the printed newspaper again.

And if you’re pretentious too (or perhaps just interested in supporting small businesses, workers’ rights, and the environment), don’t forget there are alternatives to Amazon for books.

One more thing: Making reading a habit is easier when you quit social media or at least scale back. 

The post How to Make Reading a Habit appeared first on A Merry Loner.

I was aware of the intense luxury of the moment. After graduating, I knew a full-time desk job would leave no space for leisurely afternoon reading. But I didn’t know reading the physical newspaper would prove so refreshing. 

These days, I’ve traded the daily “Wall Street Journal,” filter coffee out of a styrofoam cup, and South Kingstown, Rhode Island for “Le Monde,” a double espresso, and Paris. As expected, I no longer have time to read the entire paper every day. But I’ve slowly been turning on friends to the dying art of reading the print newspaper. (Really, isn’t it already dead?) Here’s why: 

Discover topics you wouldn’t ordinarily follow

This is the number-one thing I love about reading the physical newspaper cover to cover. Unlike websites, apps, or — God forbid — social media feeds where it’s too easy to simply scroll the headlines without really reading anything, the physical pages of a newspaper keep your eyes (and mind) focused on what’s in front of you. 

Not to mention the lack of algorithms. Yes, of course there are still editors, agendas, and other tastemakers (some more nefarious than others) deciding what makes it to print. But unlike an algorithm that’s designed to reinforce your existing beliefs and feed you sensationalism to make your blood boil, a printed newspaper gives the same story to everyone, no matter what other content you’ve engaged with before. 

That means in a single sitting, I can cover art, politics, culture, and finance, reading entire articles on subjects I’d normally scroll by without a second glance. 

Free yourself from pop-up ads and paywalls

That alone is a compelling reason to pick up a newspaper instead of your phone. Sure, a newspaper still has ads. But no matter which page you’re on, there’s nothing physically obstructing your view of the text, unlike digital articles riddled with pop-up ads, ceaseless notifications, and, worst of all, abominable audio ads.

The same goes for pesky paywalls. You’ve already paid for the paper. Rather than having your data mined and your soul all but sold to God knows whom, buying a newspaper is a clean, transparent transaction: You pay for the paper. You get the paper. You can read the paper in peace without any notifications accosting you with solicitations to subscribe, click, or do anything but read the damn thing.

Get a break from the screen and constant notifications

I’m always looking for ways to add more quiet into my daily life, and I’ve found a general rule of thumb that rarely fails: get away from the screen. 

“But I want to be informed,” you may protest. “I don’t want to shut out the world and become a hermit.” 

Not a good enough excuse, my friend. The Internet is not necessary to be a well-read, informed person. There’s plenty to discover offline in the pages of the daily newspaper. And guess what? Once you’ve exhausted today’s edition, there’s more coming tomorrow. And the day after that. And the day after that. 

Keep writing alive

Like much else in life, you get what you pay for. If you want quality reporting, vibrant storytelling, and intellectuals to earn a respectable wage, the money has to come from somewhere. 

I get it. Life is crushingly expensive, and it seems there’s no respite in sight. But your local library definitely carries newspapers for free. Your local coffee shop might, too. (If not, why not make a friendly suggestion? The worst they can say is no. Plus, chatting up your local barista is a great way to practice putting yourself out there.)

Bottom line, our purchases literally fund the world we live in. If you want more free press and more jobs for creative thinkers, start reading the daily paper.

Going offline and living well

I’m a big advocate for living an analog life. The research is there; we know the Internet (and social media, in particular) is making us sad, lonely, anxious, envious — the list goes on. Reading the newspaper, even once a week, is a step towards building healthier habits to make life better. And it’s easy. 

If the dark caverns of the Internet are still eating a lot of your free time, this is what helped me quit social media for good.

There are alternatives to the default way of living. You don’t have to do anything, especially lose time to doomscrolling and headline-skimming. 

For more ways to fund the kind of world you want to live in, read easy, affordable ways to support local businesses and alternatives to Amazon for books.

The post Why It’s Worth Reading the Newspaper Again appeared first on A Merry Loner.

Even if we’re fortunate enough to sleep in a warm bed, walk safely down the street, and fill our cups with preferred food and drink, we are not in the clear. Family troubles await us, as do friendship complications, work stresses, school anxieties, financial worries. 

The troubling thing about troubles is that almost anything can become troublesome. 

What are we to do in such moments? How can we pull ourselves out of a slump when there is no one there to lift us up? Even when family and friends abound, sometimes, the troubles still gnaw at us from within. What then? How do we get through a difficult time? 

Some turn to God, others to science, others to the Internet or the advice of a know-it-all or at least a well-meaning friend. Helpful resources, these may be, but even the best external balms can do little to cure inner wounds. 

Yes, luck often plays a rather large hand in dealing our share of particular woes. Some are born into money; others, beauty. Still others, an unteachable charisma that works as a magic key for getting a promotion, finding true love, or getting upgraded on every flight. But anyone who’s ever read a children’s book or even mediocre literature knows that neither money nor beauty nor fame can buy happiness. 

Because happiness is a lot like troubles: It comes from within. 

So when life is troubling you, fate seems against you, and Lady Luck is never on your side, don’t let yourself despair for too long, for you have a trick up your sleeve no one can match: you. 

1 Find comfort in knowing your problems aren’t unique

We valorize the word “unique,” but sometimes there’s a great relief in knowing we are but one among many. 

This doesn’t mean our troubles are insignificant; it means they are surmountable. If other people decades prior and oceans away have faced the same troubles that keep us awake tonight, then, surely, we, too, can overcome them. 

“How will I pay rent next month?” “Am I going to end up alone?” “When will they notice me?” 

Much of human strife can be categorized thusly: worrying about money, love, or a greater sense of purpose. Yet as we ourselves face existential dread, it’s as if we are the very first to feel its weight. No one’s ever faced such an ordeal before us nor suffered a heartbreak like ours. No one’s ever been so without hope.

But, more often than not, our problems are not unique. Somewhere in the expanse of time and space, someone else has, is, or will feel their heart break as ours is, lose a loved one, cringe from embarrassment, get let down. 

Accepting that our troubles are, in many ways, commonplace doesn’t deny us the right to feel them deeply, but it can help us face them with a calmer perspective. If others have so suffered and prevailed, we can, too. 

2 Remind yourself that nothing lasts forever

For better or for worse, nothing lasts forever.

In good times, I rewrite this motto in my journal to remind myself to appreciate the people, places, and treasures around me. Friends I’m now close with who, one day, will no longer be part of my everyday life — not because we’ll have a falling out or lose that unspoken fondness for each other, but because life will simply march on. Coffee dates that now seem ordinary will become fond memories of the past. Blurry photos from blurry Friday nights will become hazy relics we blow the dust off of every few months. Then every few years. Then less and less often until most fade from our storytelling repertoire. 

The same motto serves me when times are tough, for every bout of depression I’ve lived, every lonely season, every year without much purpose or many friends, each has turned out to be but a brief period in the grand scheme of life that one day met its natural end. I discovered new faces, changed locations, explored new hobbies, and sooner or later, found the light again. 

Each time, it was waiting right around the corner. Though there was no hint of a new relationship about to bloom or an evening that would warm my soul for weeks, still, they came. All on their own, the good times simply came.

3 Confide in someone (it doesn’t even have to be a friend)

It is inexplicably easier, sometimes, to pour our hearts out to a stranger than it is to a trusted friend. 

Talking to a friend, somehow, gives permanence to our words and, by extension, our troubles. We will surely see them again, and a considerate friend will surely follow up on our confessions. A stranger, less so. 

Of course, a stranger isn’t always prepared to listen. But every now and then, fate strikes. An acquaintance at a party makes that secret part of you that never could reveal itself before feel seen. You never meet them again, but as they leave, they take a heavy weight from your shoulders with them. 

Or maybe you stumble into a conversation at the corner coffee shop. There’s an elderly woman who drinks plain black coffee and is too far removed from modern day to understand your stresses about spreadsheets or the young person’s dating hellscape. But she listens. She nods in the right places and gives you a smile that, for the first time in a while, doesn’t feel like someone’s obligatory pleasantry. You leave with your cappuccino and, for the first time in a while, optimism. 

4 Return to the real world (that is, the one offline)

When going through a difficult time, it’s easy to assume everyone else is walking on a cloud. After all, what do they have to be concerned about? They haven’t the stresses you do: the taxing job, the hair that doesn’t cooperate, the disappointing bank account, the nonexistent love life. 

But if looking in the mirror is difficult, peering out the window isn’t going to help. 

So close the curtains — that is, the curtains to the screen. Stop looking at social media. Stop romanticizing strangers’ lives and critiquing your own. Stop imagining how buoyant and beautiful you’d be if you could just buy something new. Stop feeding the beast that tells you what you have isn’t enough. 

Above all, stop turning to the screen to try to drown yourself out: scrolling in the grocery line, looping background music while you cook, shoving a podcast in your ears the moment you step outside, anything so you don’t have to face a moment of silence with your own thoughts. 

In difficult times, escapism is a tempting reprieve, but it is temporary. Finding peace requires coming home to ourselves. 

Making it through hard times starts with coming back to yourself

Wherever you go, there you are. No matter where we run, what we consume, or how we try to numb ourselves to our realities, there is no escaping what lies within. Though confronting the inner angst, loneliness, disappointment, or resentment that may be eating you is daunting on a good day, flight is no path to contentment. It takes you and you alone to get there. 

Getting off social media and silencing the voices that distract, confuse, and belittle me has made it easier for me to listen to myself and weather the difficult times. Going cold turkey, however, isn’t for everyone. This is how I quit social media and brought more calm back to my life. 

For another perspective, see how my dear friend Shelby DiNoble took a step back from social media and, in doing so, what he learned about himself. 

Now when the difficult times make a reappearance (as they always do), I seek beauty to ease my spirit. These poems about new beginnings are a favorite I pull from my bookshelf often. For really low moments when I want to remind myself it’s never too late to turn things around, one of these quotes about feeling alone is ready with its wisdom.  

The post How to Get Through a Difficult Time appeared first on A Merry Loner.

Where is the calm? In hiding, waiting for you to unearth it and protect it like a timid fallen sparrow. 

A year or so ago, I reached my limit for what felt like everything. Too many texts. Too many emails. Too much noise. Not enough space for myself to think, uninfluenced. So I introduced more quiet into my daily life, and the effects have been blissful. This is what I did: 

Live without constant background music

It is everywhere these days. The library, I think, is the only establishment left that doesn’t pipe music into the ether every minute of the day. 

I play the piano, the guitar, and the flute. I carefully transported my record player (a prized treasure since high school) across the Atlantic to settle into my Parisian apartment. It needn’t be affirmed that music is a balm for the soul and an important daily companion for many of us. But I’ve learned it should be a companion we seek out, not an overbearing busybody who won’t give us a moment alone. 

Now when I’m walking to work, grocery shopping, or just unwinding at home, I don’t default to music. Instead of seeing silence as some frightening void I must rush to clog up, I savor it. More than that, I savor the daydreams and reflections to which only silence can send me. 

Read more than you watch

The temptation to sit and empty our minds and live vicariously is hard to fight, especially when fatigue or boredom come calling. At the end of the day, I, too, appreciate giving my mind a rest with a big bowl of popcorn and the antics of my favorite characters. 

But I realized I was leaning on these supports too often, even when my mind wasn’t tired and didn’t need a rest. Maybe I was procrastinating or trying to quiet anxious thoughts or simply bored. In any case, ending a binging or scrolling session rarely made me feel better. Instead, it introduced comparison, self-critique, anger about the state of the world, or the desire to buy something I before didn’t think I needed. 

Reading doesn’t torment me in the same way. It quiets the anxious swirl in my mind, forces me to slow down, and gives my eyes and soul a break from the frantic energy of the screen. 

I’ve never closed a book thinking I’m not pretty enough or smart enough or really need to run off and buy something. 

Sleep with your phone in airplane mode (and turn off as many notifications as possible)

I once read, “My phone is supposed to be a convenience for me, not for others.” Those are now the words I live by. No more do I wake up to a deluge of notifications that immediately spikes my cortisol and sets my mind reeling with my first morning breath. Instead, I check my phone in the morning when I’m ready to, after having exercised, showered, dressed, and stepped into the sunlight to begin the day. 

Nothing bad has happened, and no message has proven so dire it couldn’t wait for me. My phone is a tool I use to make my life easier; it dictates my daily rhythm no more.

During the day, meanwhile, I’ve significantly limited the number of notifications that make it to my screen. While I cherish the contact I maintain with long-term friends and faraway family, I do not believe I need to drop everything, physically and mentally, because someone somewhere had a thought. It can wait until I’m ready. 

So away with notifications that break my attention from the present and the physical to the faroff and the digital. Away with alerts that tell me about upcoming sales. Away with everything that steals my focus and tricks me into thinking what happens on the screen is more important than what happens in front of me. 

Take a break offline

Unfortunately, the Internet has become a hardened reflex for many of us. When there is a free moment or we have to wait in line for more than three minutes, the screen is the default. There is always some reason to justify it. We’re just “checking in.” It’s for work. We’re catching up on the news. 

The only thing that’s catching is the sorry habit of running away from ever sitting in the quiet of your own thoughts. Stop running from yourself. 

When you need to take a short break from a work task or you’re waiting in line for coffee, train yourself to stop reaching for the phone. I keep a pack of cards at my desk and play a few games of Solitaire when I need to clear my mind between tasks. I stand up and stretch for five minutes. I play a couple songs on the guitar. If I’m at the office, I’ll set a timer for ten minutes and doodle or go and sit outside. If I’m in line somewhere, I challenge myself to just be. There needn’t be an activity for me to pursue every minute of the day. 

Sometimes, I mess up. In my stress, I reach for the phone. I look at things I don’t need. I scroll with no point. And I always put down the phone more harried and wired than before, now with guilt and self-disgust layered on top.

Solitaire and doodling, on the other hand, have never done me dirty. 

Stop constantly stimulating and distracting yourself. Learn to just be with yourself. 

Being alone is, for some reason, quite unsettling for a lot of people. We feel we must be busy. We must be talking to someone. We must never be bored. I believe this is slowly killing us.

Being plugged in all the time keeps our bodies on high alert, depriving us of any prolonged calm and relaxation. It makes us constantly weigh our lives, our successes, our have-nots against someone else’s, or, more likely, the illusion of someone else’s life that we’re certain is easier and more fulfilling than our own. 

Worse still, when we never allow quiet into our days, we deny ourselves access to the one thing truly responsible for our own happiness: ourselves. 

Friends, family, pets, travel — the list of external pleasures is endless. But they can only do so much to really fill us up if they’re not founded on an already solid ground of inner contentment. Running from the quiet of sitting with ourselves makes that contentment ever harder to find. 

Learn why spending intentional, undistracted time alone with yourself is good for your mind and your relationships. If that seems difficult, see four ways to help you learn to enjoy your own company. 

Appreciating intentional solitude is easier when the entire world isn’t trying to distract you. See 34+ ideas of what to do instead of social media, whether you’re eating, commuting, waiting in line, or simply bored. If you’d like to work towards quitting social media altogether, here’s what worked for me.

The post How to Find More Quiet in Daily Life appeared first on A Merry Loner.

That’s why I love getting a peek into someone else’s life to remind myself that the world is largely made up of people who differ from me in the kinds of families that surround them, the challenges (and advantages) they encounter, and the dreams they chase. I especially appreciate the nudge to remember that life isn’t linear and there are a lot of different ways to build yours. 

Here are five memoirs I’ve read over the years that made me think differently: 

This Rescue Thing by Penny Allen

It’s not often one gets to buy a book directly from the author’s hands at a private dinner, but that’s where I ended up last winter. 

Allen and I both belong to the Phi Beta Kappa Paris chapter, which is how I scored an invitation to a reading of her memoir at Café de la Mairie in the 6th arrondissement. It was an hour-long reading  performed by the highly impressive Mona la liseuse who read aloud a series of extracts, creating an essentially abridged version of the memoir. 

It’s set in late 20th-century Paris, where Allen is working a stressful desk job. Interspersed among the present day are flashbacks to her life on the West Coast when she mingled with a troop of bohemians, including the scene-stealing, provocative Sansan, her version of that friend we all have who is so mesmerizing they become the object of the entire friend group’s infatuation, despite (or perhaps because of) their unusual mannerisms. After years of barely any contact, Allen receives a fax (yes, a fax) from Thailand with a cryptic message and a plea for help from Sansan, kicking off her journey to Asia to help her friend escape from what she describes as a mental asylum slash prison. 

Allen’s true story takes us back to life before ubiquitous Internet and smartphones and prods you to ponder a timeless question: What are you capable of when life demands it? 

Dinner for Vampires by Bethany Joy Lenz

I’ve never watched One Tree Hill, the cult 2000s TV show that made Bethany Joy Lenz famous, but that didn’t make her memoir any less binge-worthy. 

The big pop culture intrigue that made Lenz’s 2024 book a staple on Internet must-read lists is the juicy reveal that she was in a cult — a real, honest-to-goodness, let’s-all-live-in-the-same-house religious cult called “The Big House Family.” A shudder-inducing name. 

But this memoir goes further than satisfying fans’ taste for Hollywood gossip. Actually, celebrity fodder is in rather short supply here. Instead, what you get is a walk in the shoes of a smart, kind, creative person who, step by imperceptible step, unknowingly falls into the clutches of a manipulative tribe, losing millions of dollars and years of her life along the way. 

And then she walked back out. Though accidentally joining a cult may seem far removed from most of our realities (hopefully), Lenz’s story proves that disentangling yourself from someone else’s influence, reclaiming your independence, and rebuilding your life, no matter how lost to others it may feel, is always still possible. 

My Story by Ingrid Bergman

In college, I went through a big Old Hollywood phase, mainly reading a lot of biographies about Marilyn Monroe and watching Audrey Hepburn and Grace Kelly movies. After seeing Casablanca, I jumped to read Ingrid Bergman’s memoir. Little did I know of the drama that awaited me.

This is the short version: After years reigning as America’s sweetheart star of cinema, Bergman began an affair with her Italian director while filming Stromboli — despite her marriage to a Swedish neurosurgeon. Instantly, she became America’s public enemy number one, with Senator Edwin C. Johnson even lambasting her on the Senate floor as “a powerful influence for evil” and an “apostle of degradation.” Her male contemporaries, of course, who were open womanizers and cheaters received no such titles.

Decades after the scandal faded (and Bergman came back to win her second Academy Award for Best Actress in Anastasia), she published  her autobiography with the final word on her story. Even those of us living outside the spotlight can appreciate Bergman’s resilience. We may face criticism and mean-spirited judgment from colleagues, frenemies, or unappreciative family members, but those comments needn’t be the final say on who we are. 

Dolly by Dolly Parton

Is there a more lovable public figure than Dolly Parton? At a time when everyone seems to hate each other, Dolly is one icon the country can truly rally around. (Case in point: A recent poll dubbed her the most beloved public figure in America.) 

And she’s been beloved by audiences for decades. As her 1994 memoir recounts, Parton grew up near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee before blossoming into the multi-hyphenate (singer, songwriter, actress, philanthropist, and businesswoman) who’s still moving at full force today. I don’t think it’s her long-running success that’s made her a crowd favorite, though, but her incredible philanthropy and kindness, e.g., helping fund COVID-19 vaccine research and delivering free books to children via her Imagination Library. 

Her commitment to living unabashedly as herself is also noteworthy. Her signature flamboyant style has been the subject of media discussion for years, but that’s what she likes. Her husband has famously avoided the spotlight despite her supernova celebrity, but that’s never stopped her from performing. Six decades after the release of her debut album, Parton is still chugging along in the same spangled ensembles, proving that being yourself and flexing your creative muscles has no age limit. 

Paris Nights by Cliff Simon

I read this book in 2016, just a few months before I took off to Rennes, France for a semester abroad. At 20 years old, it was my first international flight and first time living on my own, so actor Cliff Simon’s memoir about his own one-year sejour in Paris was the perfect reading material for my journey across the pond. 

Inside, we see how one serendipitous phone call took the South African actor from Johannesburg to Paris, where he played out a year-long gig dancing at the Moulin Rouge. And Simon delivers on the antics you’d want to hear about life in pre-Internet Paris: jumping between night clubs, dodging street fights, and even accidentally cavorting with diamond smugglers. 

What I like most about Simon’s memoir is learning that his year at the Moulin Rouge was just one drop in the bucket. Originally training as a swimmer and gymnast, then becoming a soldier, then shifting through various odd jobs before settling into a career of dancing and acting, Simon’s life was unpredictable and ever-changing. When things don’t seem to be going right or they just feel too stagnant, this book reminds that there lie lots of unexpected twists around the corner. You just have to be prepared to say yes to them. 

What moral would your memoir teach? 

Every now and then, I like to zoom out and view my life from a birds’-eye view. Decades from now, what tales will I be able to tell? 

It’s an interesting practice to stoke one’s ambition but also one’s patience, offering some perspective that whatever you’re living right now — for better or for worse — will, at some point, no longer be. 

What story do you want to leave behind you?

Read how to put yourself out there for three ways to help you build that extraordinary life. Then, learn how to get better at doing things alone so you can build the inner peace and confidence to get there without waiting on someone else to join you. 

And for your reading list: four books on traveling alone to feed your wanderlust.

The post Memoirs to Remind You What’s Possible appeared first on A Merry Loner.

It’s obvious that putting yourself out there can help you land an interview for a slightly less soul-sucking way to pay your bills or finally put you in touch with your soulmate so you can bid adieu to dating apps forever. But it simply makes the days more joyful, too. When you get over your social anxiety long enough to tell that stranger in the coffee line that you like their shoes, don’t you both smile and hate humanity less, even for a few seconds? 

I know it’s not easy for everyone to put themselves out there, especially for introverts or those whose childhood report cards never earned the “takes initiative” stamp in the teacher comments. But if you don’t learn how to muster up the courage to put yourself out there, your life is going to end up passing you by while you sit around waiting for people, opportunities, and, dare I say, happiness to come find you. 

What I learned about putting myself out there 

After graduating college, I moved to the capital city of my home state. It wasn’t far from where I grew up; still, I had only one vague acquaintance who lived there, leaving me with barely any social network to cling to. I knew if I didn’t want a repeat of my college years (which, admittedly, were not the highlight of my life), I needed to do something to build a world around me that gave me the life I wanted. 

I knew it wasn’t always going to be fun. People weren’t going to line up and knock on the door to ask to be my friend. I was going to have to make the first moves. 

In the end, I lived in that city for two years. I had a big social network with many layers of acquaintances, side characters, and friendly neighborhood faces to add variety to my inner circle and color to my Friday nights. 

This is what I learned about putting myself out there and becoming an active player in my own life:

You have to get over the fear of being the first one to reach out. 

Relationships don’t spring up from nowhere. Someone has to make the first move, and if you’re not content to let others run your life for you, that someone should be you. 

Yes, you can wait on other people to reach out to you. But they’re probably just as nervous as you are. If both of you keep cowering in your respective corners waiting for the other to take the first step forward, you’re never going to meet. 

Plus, do you want to leave the direction of your life in strangers’ hands? Do you want to actively choose the people you hang out with (and possibly become romantically entangled with)? Or are you fine with just accepting whomever comes along and falls in your lap? 

There’s no secret key to confidence here. One day, you just have to pull the trigger and start practicing, one baby step after another. 

Signing up for a social event is a great place to start. But sorry, that’s not enough. You don’t make friendships just by showing up to local trivia night. You have to go further, i.e., exchange numbers with someone (ideally, multiple someones) and then text them afterwards to invite them out for a coffee or drink. 

It will be awkward sometimes. Some people will ghost you. But you’re a big person, and you can handle this. (Short people can handle this, too.) Over time, reaching out first will become easier and less scary. And sooner or later, something (or someone) will stick. 

Practice putting yourself out there this week with A Merry Loner’s 7-Day Do Things Alone Challenge. For seven days, you’ll get an email a day with one bite-size challenge to help you practice doing things alone in public so you can get more comfortable putting yourself out there. 

You can’t take it personally when things don’t work out. 

Sadly, life is not just one string of amazing successes after the other. 

People will sometimes be rude to you for no reason. On some occasions, you will say the wrong thing. On others, you will say the right thing, but you still won’t hit it off with everybody. 

It happens. It’s unavoidable. So stop letting yourself get all worked up when you shoot your shot and fall flat on your face. 

Instead, when someone ghosts you, insults you, or otherwise disappoints you, remember: You can just move on. You don’t owe them an explanation, and you don’t always need closure. You can simply call it a day and move on with your life. 

Similarly, if you put yourself out there, think someone likes you, but still end up cast aside or left out, do not use this experience as a catalyst to re-examine your self worth. Sometimes, it just be like that. After all, have you liked every single person you’ve ever met? Of course not, so why should other people? They’re allowed preferences, too. You can both be, individually, great people; you just don’t belong together. 

It helps to pretend you’re already who you want to be. 

I’ve been doing this, almost subconsciously, since I was a teenager.

High school was not a golden time for me. I had great friends, impressive grades, and a stacked extracurriculars list ready for college applications (field hockey captain, yearbook editor, honor council secretary, you name it). But for a variety of reasons that will remain undisclosed, I didn’t often feel happy. As many others probably did (I now realize), I felt like I didn’t fit in and was constantly imagining who I could be and what my life could look like if I were simply somewhere else. 

I escaped by reading. Off the pages, I became the protagonist in my own coming-of-age novel. There, I was not schlepping around a Hawaiian-flower-print L.L. Bean backpack, stressing out about my Honors English class, or flipping through fashion magazines alone at lunchtime. I was a budding writer, hatching the first draft of what would become the Next Great American Novel. Or I was a still-undiscovered future starlet, giving an indie performance from the trunk of her used minivan after class. Or whatever other character I was playing that day.  

I wasn’t trying to be someone I wasn’t. But strangely, by playing out those stories in my head, I grew the confidence to experiment with what felt right for me and to keep working towards the person I wanted to be.

That meant when a group of boys called me names while walking by my locker or when some girls found an ingenious way of simultaneously excluding me and being polite, I didn’t let those moments alter the way I thought about myself. Instead, I held onto the vision of the person I wanted to be and acted like I already was her.

Putting yourself out there is the only way to create the life you want. 

I’ve achieved things I hadn’t even considered to dream because I found the confidence to put myself out there and become an active player in my life. 

As a full-time freelance writer who walked away from corporate life, I would have no work, no clients, and no money if I didn’t get comfortable introducing myself to strangers, sending the first email, or following up on what feels like a dead end. 

As an American living in France for almost five years, I never would have become fluent in the language if I hadn’t been willing to embarrass myself and muscle through difficult situations. 

As someone about to celebrate their fourth wedding anniversary, I wouldn’t have learned how fun being married can be if I hadn’t found the courage (and had a couple of gin and tonics) to tell my now husband, then long-time friend, how I felt. 

Though times may feel difficult, there is still much opportunity to bring beauty into your life. Don’t waste time hoping to be discovered. Do what it takes to put yourself where you want to be.  

For courage to push yourself to try something new, read these short poems about new beginnings. If it’s friendship you seek to help you bear the weight of what it takes to be human, learn how spending more time alone can, paradoxically, help you get more comfortable meeting new people. 

If you feel like you’re putting yourself out there but nothing is sticking, keep the faith. These quotes about feeling alone remind us we’re each steering our own ship and are each capable of creating our own peace. 

The post How to Put Yourself Out There appeared first on A Merry Loner.

Certainly, there are people to whom we feel we can say anything, people who seem to understand our thoughts and intentions by grace of some unnamed, intangible force, sometimes even before we ourselves are aware of what’s forming within. But even they take our time and attention (no matter how willing we are to give it) away from our own internal dialogue. And we need this internal dialogue to work through new ideas, experiment freely, and decide for ourselves what we think, value, and feel. 

Our internal dialogues are something to be preserved. And like all good things in life, sometimes ensuring that preservation means fighting for it. 

But how to do so without leaving a bruise? How can we ask for space in a relationship? From dear friends who have softer boundaries for personal space than we do? From family members, who may mean well, but seem to have forgotten that we have grown up into adults with different temperaments, wills, and wishes than those that defined us in adolescence? From romantic partners who may have been taught, through no fault of their own, that codependency is the proof of a loving relationship? 

Answering these questions raises another yet another: Whose feelings are more worth protecting? 

Do we stifle our own need for space and solitude because we dub these needs somehow less vital than those of another to be near us, talk to us, touch us? Do we put what we feel is our duty to honor other people’s needs over the duty we owe to ourselves? 

Building our compassion is a noble goal. We don’t want to hurt other people’s feelings; we don’t want to make them feel neglected or unloved. We want to be a considerate human being, capable of putting ourselves in another’s shoes. But in practicing empathy, we sometimes go too far, walking so long in someone else’s shoes that we forget how to find our own way back home. 

It’s a path that can quickly lead to resentment. Resentment for having always, or at least too often, prioritized the needs of our partner over our own; for having submitted to our family’s wishes because we fear disappointing them; for having deferred to the decisions of our friend group, silencing our own opinions for want of keeping the peace. 

But how can we really form our own opinions if we never give ourselves the time and space to sit with just ourselves? To pay attention to our own thoughts, unclouded and uninfluenced by someone else’s? How can we learn to be our pure selves if we’re always role-playing friend, sister, partner, father, co-worker, brother, mother? 

It’s worth asking oneself: “Who are you without the personalities you’ve built by association? When all of the people for whom you play these roles are gone, who is the you that’s left?”

That’s the you only you can meet when you clear the space to meet them. 

Clearing that space takes, quite honestly, courage to ask for what we need. Rather, not ask, but firmly, though politely, insist. Politely because — despite the torrent of self-help manifestos that encourage us to set boundaries and profess our own beliefs so loudly that we close ourselves off to the words of anyone who may have exhibited the slightest indications of perhaps having the chance to disagree with us — it takes two people to maintain a relationship. Politely because advocating for oneself does not have to come at the expense of someone else’s wellbeing. Politely because we may want a little more space in our relationship, but we do not need to sacrifice said relationship to get it. Politely because as a songwriter once said, “Being good to people is a wonderful legacy to leave behind.” 

So we insist on that space, firmly though politely. That may look like, telling one’s partner that we need a little quiet time to ourselves after coming home from work, that those thirty minutes of solitude are by no means a rejection but a simple moment of introspective recharging; explaining to one’s parents that we are happy to share an evening meal with them but that we cannot partake in such a meal if they drop by sans invitation, sans announcement; letting a friend know that we value their closeness but we cannot respond to every message within ten minutes of receiving it. 

It’s not always easy to ask for what we want. The task is even more difficult when we are unsure of what we need to feel less stressed and more fulfilled. We can begin the hard but glorious work of seeking those answers by dedicating regular time to intentional solitude, time we reserve exclusively for ourselves, without scrolling, music, or even books to occupy us. It’s only in this sacred space that we can hear ourselves, learn about ourselves, and eventually use those learnings to become a better person, for both ourselves and all the people we love.  

Read six benefits of solitude and why intentional solitude is getting harder to come by. Learn why embracing this intentional alone time can actually help us meet new people and make new friends. And for an antidote to the poison Big Tech has pumped into our veins over the last fifteen-odd years, find strategies to help you quit social media so you can make space for intentional solitude. 

Lest we forget, dedicating time for intentional solitude is never meant to come at the expense of building and maintaining meaningful relationships; healthy alone time is, in fact, necessary to form relationships that aren’t simply a means of avoiding ourselves. Ensuring that alone time means asking for space in a relationship, sometimes even from people we love. 

If our loved ones seem unwilling, unable, or unsure how to fill this new time without us, help them learn how to enjoy their own company and how to get better at doing things alone. Better yet, give them the gift of finding comfort in their own company with this seven-day exercise on overcoming loneliness. 

The post How to Ask for Space from People You Love appeared first on A Merry Loner.

September is the ninth month of the year, but for many, brings the same refreshing feeling of January. Perhaps it’s the smell of fresh notebooks, new class schedules, and first-day-of-school outfits that lingers in our minds and makes the end of the summer feel like a beginning. But sometimes, we get the urge to start anew on a Wednesday. Or in July. Or at two o’clock in the afternoon when we’ve had a very disagreeable morning and want to restart the clock to try to win back those lost, grumpy hours. 

A few deep breaths can help. A short walk to the corner and back can bring an entirely new perspective. Sometimes, simply brewing a fresh cup of coffee, cracking your knuckles, and opening to a clean page in a book or notepad can trick our minds into starting the day anew. 

It’s not always just the morning hours we wish we could take back, though. It’s the entire week, the last few months, or, when our spirits are particularly low and tomorrow feels more like an obligation than an opportunity, it’s the last several years that have been weighing us down, tethered to the ankles. 

How to set ourselves free? How to, despite everything, start again? 

Poetry can help. 

During my college years when melancholy trailed me like cigarette fumes, I found solace in leftover napkins, corners of newspapers (for I used to luxuriate in the free time of a college student by reading the newspaper cover to cover every day at eleven o’clock, accompanied only by a toasted bagel with cream cheese and a black coffee), and torn-out, crinkled notepads. I wrote away the malaise, releasing it from me in a disjointed anthology of mediocre poems thrown together in between classes, during classes, at coffee shops, and even in the car when I would hurry to pull into the nearest parking lot to preserve an idea. In a way, those poems preserved me, or at least the me who was ailing, and in capturing her inky ponderings, those poems set the new me free. 

“Professional” poems (what I call those published and printed in a book for mass-market sale) helped set the new me free, too. 

During difficult times, my melancholy introduced me to  Charles Bukowski, Molière and my beloved, dreamy William Butler Yeats. Their works fed the melancholy, helped it steep and simmer until I felt ready enough to let it go. But it was Joy Sullivan who spooned me an all-together new kind of elixir that tasted like optimism, more like a soup, really, the kind of broth over which someone labors for hours, one spoonful of which is enough to soothe the sorest throat and deliver a week’s worth of bed rest in one warm gulp. 

Here are a few loving spoonfuls for you: 

And one big bowl: 

These extracts are from Instructions for Traveling West by Joy Sullivan, a collection of poems I read in one sitting in the bath one winter night, marinating in the memories of who I once was and who I’d become, trying to figure out what was still holding me back from outwardly being the me only I know me to be. 

And then I pulled the plug and watched the suds swirl away and decided that that evening was as good a time as any to start anew. 

I’ve since gifted my copy of Instructions for Traveling West to a friend and need to replace it. In the meantime, I keep a space on my shelf for these four books that soothe me when existential dread comes back to rear its ugly head. 

If you’re feeling the winds giving you a gentle nudge to start anew, see quotes about feeling alone to remind yourself that we are each steering our own ship and capable of reorienting our lives at any moment we choose. Traveling alone can help us determine where we want that ship to go; for cautious or new travelers, these books on traveling alone provide courage to set off. 

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The post Poems About New Beginnings for When You Need to Start Again appeared first on A Merry Loner.