By Penny Power – Business Author & Human-Centred Speaker
This is not a sob story or asking anyone to feel like a victim; I actually want to give a perspective that can help, and that helped me when I thought deeply about the moments when I have felt isolated, insignificant, or disconnected. It’s about loneliness.
For over a decade, the subject of loneliness has been discussed and researched, and it has intrigued me. I think it would be hard to find anyone who, at some moment in their life, wouldn’t have felt this emotion, including me.
Some people will have a chronic sense of loneliness. I cannot say I have experienced this; I have always been able to feel connected to a few people who I know I matter to.
However, there are times in my life when I have felt lonely in business, and I have felt socially lonely. The ‘lonely in a crowd’ expression is real.
It’s not about knowing loads of people or being among or connected to loads of people; it is about having a few people that notice our existence. It’s clear that we all have various ‘communities’- large or small- that we need to feel connected to, to know that we would be missed if we no longer turned up.
These communities could be social, business, sports, spiritual, local, neighbours, family, and there may be a reason we chose to belong to them. Some may be casual and have a purpose; some may be more intense, and we may need them in our lives to thrive.
It takes a lot of effort to be a contributing member of a community, and this is the issue. We have to have the time and energy to contribute to be significant within communities; if we don’t, then we are bystanders, observers, and in a way ‘consumers’ of the efforts of others.
Time, capacity, and effort are the challenge. I know that I feel lonely when I cannot find the time or energy to contribute. Those times in my life when I am so busy with family or work that any other community or person is out of reach are a real capacity challenge.
I strongly believe that if we don’t have time to contribute and be interested in others, then I cannot expect to feel significant to them. If I am not going to invest in others, to take time to be interested in them, I am insignificant, and that is not surprising.
I think we have to be honest with some of the feelings of loneliness we might experience in our lives, putting aside tragic losses. Rather than assuming we are being ignored or left out, we need to consider where we have built the worthiness for their attention, interest, and time. I had to have a very honest talk with myself.
I realised that my lack of commitment to groups of friends that I belonged to, due to my workload and family commitments, was the reason I felt lonely.
I was not making people in my social life, apart from two very close friends, feel significant by my giving of time, so why should I feel significant to them?
It is the same in business; I had a long period when I was so focused on my own survival that I believed I didn’t have time to be close to other business owners.
I had to ask myself: what am I actually doing to help people that matter to me in the business communities I was linked to? People who did matter to me, but I was not connecting deeply with them.
These could be the team you work with, the clients you need and think you are caring for, the suppliers that are critical to your workflow. And what about the business networks you have joined: how often are you giving and showing an interest in others and realising that they too are vulnerable, possibly exhausted, excited by an idea, needing some help?
It is not enough to just be present in life; we need to be active with relationships, and there lies a challenge I will address next week in my Ponderings- our personal capacity; that’s the challenge: where do we put our attention most? Have a super week, and perhaps use this week to reach out and deepen a relationship with someone that matters to you.
With love,
Penny x
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