have you ever kept someone in your life who was obviously bad for you
who was toxic and mean and who dragged you down just because you were scared of being
alone without them? or have you ever denied yourself the pleasure of doing something
just because you had no one else to do it with? because I have and the most important
lesson that I learned from it was that time spent alone, even though it's not the
same, can be no less valuable and just as enjoyable as time spent with other people
today's schedule is going to be looking
like I have a follow-up appointment for my wisdom teeth
afterwards I have work from home and then I'm gonna finish editing this weekend's video, read
I used to think that spending time with people I didn't necessarily enjoy being around was
better than being alone when were children alone time was often a punishment in all
movies and TV shows that we watched the happy and popular people are always surrounded by
others while the sad and depressed ones always eat alone but that can't be the whole story
I think the biggest reason we might not enjoy spending time alone is that we never really try
to and that's maybe because we're never taught why we should after all if we have people in
our lives why should we want to spend our time without them isn't it just a problem we would
only have if we can't find enough people to surround ourselves with? it turns out that all of this is wrong.
the time is around 8 AM so let's head to my appointment
I realize that no matter how many friends we make or people we have in our lives it will always be important to
carve out time in our days that are just for ourselves and no one else the reason is that
the time that we spend alone is our opportunity to build the foundation we need to take on the world
I know that this is not a look right now but please forgive me
the world is a really unpredictable place almost all of it except what's inside yourself is beyond your control
all right update if anybody cares on this side it's a bit more inflamed a bit more swollen and
it might be because the blood clot fell off too early so it's what's known as a dry socket so
he put something in there to help with the pain but I should be in pain for like another week :(
friends can betray you you can lose your job or fail an exam you really
need to pass no matter how hard you try to avoid them sometimes bad things are
going to happen in your life and if you want to protect yourself from it all you
have to first be able to find happiness and contentment all by yourself without
relying on anyone else or anything else to make that happen
so I'm gonna make a matcha
guys I'm starving and I haven't eaten yet today because the thing that they put in my
mouth it tasted so terrible but I'm going to make a protein smoothie now for a like
breakfast lunch brunch type of thing I've never done this before so I'm just going
to add some vanilla protein powder to my usual smoothie let's see how it tastes
sometimes introspection and self-care can only really happen when you're alone especially when
it comes to assessing your emotional needs you have to be able to stop and ask yourself these
questions: how am I doing? am I happy right now and if not why? what could I be doing
differently to achieve my goals? and just as importantly what do I even want my goals to be?
although friends can help us answer some of these questions ultimately we have to be
the one to figure them out for ourselves no one can decide for us what we value most in
life or whether or not we're trying as hard as we can to achieve it and if we
never take the time to slow down and do a bit of reflection we won't be able to direct our
lives right away because we won't even know where we want to go
okay let's try this out
it's edible
yeah it's fine
at some point I became convinced that it was important for me to learn to spend time by
myself but there was still a problem I didn't know how...
my work day is over I ordered myself some congee and some "chang fen"
these are traditional Asian Foods usually people eat them for breakfast
but I am feeling the pain in my wisdom teeth again so I'm just trying to avoid anything
that's like too hard. I'm Chinese by the way if you guys don't know
I mean we could obviously spend our days in bed by ourselves scrolling on our phones until the sun sets but that's not the
point what I mean is I didn't know how to enjoy it I didn't know how to get any value out of it
like I wanted to which meant that a lot of the time that I spent by myself still felt wasteful
to me but over time I was able to change that the first thing I did to make that happen was to ask
myself if I had all the time in the world and no pressure on my shoulders what would I want to do
what do I think would bring me happiness and fulfillment if I could really immerse myself
in it and give it my all and that's part of how I ended up doing YouTube and that's what I think
we should all do together find things that we enjoy doing just for ourselves not because we
have to do them or because anyone else tells us that we should but because they bring us joy and
meaning all on their own that's how we can start to build the foundation that we need to have real
Direction and purpose in our lives by finding something to do with our time that we actually
think is meaningful whether it's working towards a fitness goal starting a project in your community
or grinding for your career the important thing is to find what works for you
another thing I got much better at over the years was being alone with my own thoughts
I used to be really anxious all the time and when I would think anxious thoughts I would try
anything to make them stop but then I learned that sometimes the best thing to do is to just let them
be often our thoughts and emotions are telling us about ourselves they're pointing towards something
that deep down we're not happy with or showing us that we're getting burnt out and since we spend
so much of our time being constantly distracted being it by our phones or by school or by other
people it can be really beneficial sometimes just sit still and let our thoughts and emotions do
their thing without trying to interfere with them by listening to them rather than pushing them away
we can make our brains work for us rather than against us and that really is a kind of self-care
one of the most valuable things that we can do for our own happiness and well-being thank you
the biggest lesson that I learned the past couple of years is that ultimately loneliness isn't about
being alone loneliness is feeling like we're deprived of deep and meaningful relationships
that make all of our lives worth living and no matter how many people we surround ourselves with
and how much time you spend hanging out with them if we don't have people in our lives who
genuinely care about us and who provide us with the support that we need who treat us with respect
and consideration and vice versa us to them we probably are going to feel lonely loneliness
is fundamentally about lack of connection and remember connection goes both ways if you don't
have anyone in your life who can do that for you then you probably don't have anyone that you can
do that for either which means that if you feel lonely filling your life with people you actually
can't relate to or don't really like being around isn't going to make you feel any better
hello guys so it's much later I'm done work work and also just finished editing my video that's going
to be released tomorrow you know you would think that I could get videos done in advance and not
the day before but somehow I always end up making like last minute changes and like
trying to do all these different things so just almost like 7 P.M now but I'm gonna make myself a
protein shake because I think I'm gonna go out to eat later tonight but I'm hungry right now
if there's one thing that I can promise you it's that you're always going to feel better
alone fully focused on yourself and your goals than you'll ever feel throwing away your time
with people who don't show you respect who don't mean anything to you and who don't really like
spending time around you anyways because at the end of the day no matter who is in your life you
have to be the one to take responsibility for your own success whatever our circumstances
no matter how difficult a road lies ahead of us there's no one who's capable of helping us
if we don't first try to help ourselves just like no one can do it alone no one can do it
all for you either so this month let's all use our alone time to look after ourselves
set all of our goals and start building the happy successful life we've always dreamed of