When You Feel Lost and Alone

“Being alone never felt right. Sometimes it felt good, but it never felt right.”
―Charles Bukowski

“This morning I felt lost and alone as I was driving home after a brutal breakup with my boyfriend. I turned on the radio and the Michael Jackson song ‘You Are Not Alone’ was playing. A few seconds later, at the exact moment the chorus began, I passed a huge billboard sign with big black letters that read, ‘YOU ARE NOT ALONE!’”

That’s the opening paragraph of an email I received today from a reader named Ella. It made me smile because I love when life delivers seemingly coincidental, positive messages like that, right when we need them most.

However, the rest of Ella’s email further described her ongoing struggle with feeling “lost and alone” in life. Which got me thinking…

Why do people have to feel this way? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them craving connection, and looking for specific experiences and people to satisfy them, yet inadvertently isolating themselves in the process. Why? Was the planet put here just to nourish our loneliness?

The more I’ve experienced and explored my own feelings of uncertainty and loneliness, the more I’ve realized how necessary these feelings are. It’s good for us to spend time exploring unknowns, alone. It gives us an opportunity to discover who we really are and what life is all about.