Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company

We all know that person that always wants to go out. They will text you every day if you are off school or university to see if you are busy and they'll always be the ones that want to go out at the weekend (sly reference to the my previous post right there). However if you are anything like me - yes it's possible! - then you'll sometimes just say no. And it's not because you have other plans or you have an important piece of work to be getting on with - you just want to stay in. I must admit that I do this more often than not (despite the fact that last night was the first night in I've had in ages) but I think it's because I enjoy my own company. There have been many nights when I've had the chance to go out with a group of people and I've decided to stay in. No I'm not antisocial, but I think that years of personal study and times spent writing (this blog for example) have helped me to realise that the best company you can keep is often someone closer to home than you think.

The thing that I've noticed recently that there are often never enough hours in the day to get everything done. However I've found the simple answer to this conundrum: there are only 24 hours with which to play - deal with it! I've been over this many times before but you will sleep for about 8 hours of that day, taking us down to 16. Take from that the time you spend in class/working and with other people and then tell me if you've got time for yourself. I can't imagine a day when I don't get at least an hour to myself without having to think about university work or other people (and their problems) - I just wouldn't function without it. On top of that there are the nights when I could be out having a 'good time' but instead I decide to stay in with music or a box set of House: life simplified. I'm quite a hard person to please so it will have to be a particularly good night out for me to enthuse about it and despite the fact that I don't tell people how good a night I had when I decide to stay in, I would venture that I had a better night than 75% of the people making the noise outside my window - never mind a better morning.

The thing is that I'm going out tonight and I am really looking forward to it. So before you get to the end of this post thinking 'damn this guy really has no social life' I would like to point out that I have as active a social life as most people - as I said before, last night was my first night in for about a week. I think the difference between the way that I approach my days and the way that other people approach their's is that I strive to get up early and get the horrible stuff out of the way as early as I can. That way I can find time to spend with mates and then some time on my own to relax and look back on what has been a successful day. I get annoyed when it gets to Friday and I realise I've done nothing with my week - those are usually the weeks when I've not found time for myself as well.

All I'm trying to say is that you should learn to enjoy your own company on the basis that you'll always be there for yourself when you need someone. If you are constantly seeking out attention from people or you constantly need to be with people then it's more than likely that you don't 'get along' with yourself. Not that you hate yourself. No you just prefer other people to yourself which, lets be honest, is a sad state of affairs in anyone's book. If anything you should really learn to enjoy your own company before you think about making new friends - how can you expect to ever get to know someone before you even know yourself? I always find the idea of 'knowing yourself' to be a very weird one. It's more a philosophical thing which this blog usually strains under the pressure of so I'll not expand on that point I don't think. After all there must be a fundamental difference between 'knowing yourself' and just enjoying your own company?

The funny thing is that you are probably on your own just now (unless my blog has suddenly become a social experience which I doubt highly) so you are half way there. If you are content just now then maybe, just maybe, you are enjoying your own company. Anyway I'm off out to meet up with that group of people I was talking about - why do I contradict myself so?

Thank you,

Martin