I spent the past year being introduced to feelings of loneliness and self-doubt, emotions that took me by surprise. I realized that everyone lives with their own struggles, and I was determined to figure out how to deal with mine.
So, how do people make themselves feel better?
I constantly hear the same things from others, over and over: “Go exercise, get enough sleep, drink lots of water…“—universal solutions for feeling better.
But what if none of these universal solutions help me? What then?
I was scrolling online, reading through various articles and discussion threads, realizing that people handle their struggles in a colossal number of ways: of course, exercising and sleeping, but also indulging in personal hobbies and journaling.
But something interesting caught my eye in those tornadoes of answers: a noticeable contrast within the conversation. Some say that surrounding yourself with others can lift your spirits, while others believe that taking time for yourself is more effective.
I think there are benefits to each. When thinking it through, a blend of both actually helped me to persevere through a spell of loneliness and doubt of my own.
How so?
My solution was shopping.
Is solitude the solution?
When people say they meditate, journal, or take a walk through nature as a way to clear their heads, I can’t help but think, do you not wallow further in your thoughts?
I can imagine slipping into my sneakers with heavy eyelids, forcing myself on an isolated walk, just to rethink every decision I’ve made in my entire life. Although I know it works differently for others, my mind has a self-destructive tendency to indulge in burning bridges.
Because, evidently, isn’t that what you’re doing in times of solitude? Thinking, reflecting, and introspecting.
I asked my friends what they do to make themselves feel better, and many of them said “driving”.
And you know what?
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little surprised.
Speeding down the freeway, windows rolled down, music blasting—that’s what they mean by driving. But if the wind is howling in your ears and the lyrics are taking up space in your mind, does that really count as a form of introspection?
Also, what if I don’t want to reflect? What if that doesn’t really help me?
I spent the past year away from home for my first year of college. In anticipation of a new, exciting life with new people and new experiences, I was let down.
At the beginning of the year, I settled into a four-story dorm. In particular, one of those tiny rooms, on the west side of the second floor, was mine.
Evidently, the day of bonding between my roommates and me that I had anticipated never came. Our conversations never reached any depths, no matter my attempts. Into the shallow end of the year, everyone kept to themselves; they’d walk out, and then walk straight back into their rooms and maintain the silence of the common area.
The disappointment of not connecting with these people, including classmates and various students, felt like a slap in the face. Why did my own room, my new home, feel like a place of alienation?
I was struck with an abundant amount of solitary time, which bruised every feeling of contentment I had with myself back home.
It was a strange feeling. Something completely unexpected, that I thought would never have been possible.
In the city I grew up in, I lived in a large, comfortable red brick home that smelled of coffee grounds. I lived here physically and mentally. Resting within the red bricks of my family and friends, my mind was comfortably settled between pillows.
I knew what clothes I liked to wear, how I acted in public, and what I filled my time with; I knew who I was. There was never too much to think about because my family and friends grounded me.
I was always accompanied by my people in some sort of fashion.
Fashion, you say?
Exactly.
I can’t deny that I was an exceptional spender. Nothing really stopped me from going out to get a $12 lunch, a $7 drink, or a $40 shopping haul. Sometimes, all of these together. But what prompted these outings back home was that they offered an excuse to spend time with those people I loved.
Shopping trips were a chance to roam around for hours, look at pretty things I liked, and, primarily, chat and smile with others. Often, I would also end up donating my wallet to them a little to show appreciation for their presence. I have to share the wealth, of course.
Back home, shopping simply added to the peace and content I already felt.
But without my family and friends, I drowned in isolation, and my feet couldn’t reach the floor. I read once that “stillness can make the mind louder”, and that was exactly my case.
With no one to spend time with besides my phone and books, a dreadful stampede of solemn confusion engulfed me. What I wanted most was to make new, amazing friends, ones who I’d keep for the rest of my life, but I couldn’t help but wonder, what was I doing so wrong that others had figured out?
It seemed everyone and their moms, cousins, sisters, and brothers were able to create a good batch of friends.
Those hooves of doubt weaseled their way through the crevices of my identity and coaxed me into deeply observing others. How do others do it so easily? It was in a slow, progressive state that I realized that by trying to understand the people around me, I was cutting off pieces about myself I understood.
As a result, I definitely had no limitations on alone time or solitude. Although that “solitude” that others pamper themselves with was only hurting me more.
What I really needed, what I wanted, was company.
Is company the solution?
When I hit the core of my isolation, I boiled myself into self-pity. Oh, poor me, who chose the wrong school and couldn’t make friends. How embarrassing.
Eventually, I accepted it.
I recognized that all I had to do was survive the end of the year, so what can I do to make myself feel better until then?
Clearly, alone time was not my solution. So what was?
Company.
I got frazzled in the shock of thinking, have I blended myself into the various versions of others? Because for a while, I felt like nobody at all. I needed people, even if they were strangers, around me.
People say that journaling allows you to put your feelings into words, helping to rid yourself of the chaotic mess inside your head. Supposedly, it lightens the stress on your shoulders.
Although I’ve never been much of a journaler, I think the act is attractive because it’s one step away from translating your feelings to someone else. I think everyone, with admittance or not, wants to be deeply understood by another person.
I’ll admit, that’s what I wanted.
However, I found that some moments easily reminded me that any interaction, no matter how small, is a sort of understanding.
Small human interactions are a clear indicator of that for me. The holding of a door, a gentle passing smile, a lighthearted joke outside. These are all recognitions between strangers, and a reminder that we are worth understanding.
I was scrolling through a Reddit thread on how people treat themselves, and a specific comment hooked me.
By making someone else feel better, you feel better yourself as well. Evidently, a very selfless way of looking at personal struggles. In times of suffering, people still find the importance of showing care for others.
Evidently, when I was in my lowest of moods, every time I journeyed alone on a shopping adventure, people reciprocated kindness to me.
Even when I was minding my own business, I felt connected with people around me, like I had finally peeped through the opening of my cave.
Those small interactions reminded me that I still existed.
Blending solitude and company
I read somewhere once that when everything feels out of control, people try to notice what they can influence.
For me, when everything else felt hopeless, an aspect I could control in my life was money. Hence, I rediscovered my habbit of spending.
I was working the same, steady job at Chipotle for the past year and a half, earning a fair biweekly paycheck. Therefore, I was never shackled to am empty wallet and felt free to roam various shops in my new city.
Although I did spend most of my shopping substantially alone, it allowed me to sustain subtle interactions with others, either a conversation at checkout or a nod of approval in an aisle.
I realized that I felt different alone in a shopping aisle than I did alone anywhere else.
Was that my solution for making myself feel better?
Piece by piece, every dollar spent, I found myself reconstructing myself.
Paying for new trinkets with thousands of my worst thoughts, I found myself redecorating my desolate dorm room: a ceramic vase in maroon, another fun plant to put by my books, and another dish with a funky pattern.
Every item felt like an extension of myself; who I was when I was on my own, of who I wanted to be, and who I will be in the future.
Was it possible to buy my way to who I wanted to be?
I replaced plain white cups with glazed mugs, changed black sheets to maroon and green ones, and added wooden shelves to flat surfaces.
I wasn’t necessarily reinventing myself, but I was reminding myself that I can grow back into who I am through inviting new items in.
And yes, retail therapy is a real thing, but not only because it brings me joy in indulging in new tags, but also because it flashes a sign saying, “Hey! Nothing is set in stone! Buy me, I’m new!”
I was bringing new things in, keeping old things in consideration, and blending them into a complex flower where every petal was a part of who I am.
So when I felt stagnant, as if all hope for serenity had been smashed and buried, I found my own personal solution for feeling better. A way for me to find company in times of loneliness and a way to find myself when suffering in self-doubt.
Shopping.
You can’t purchase anything with an empty cart
There’s a common idea that I’ve read someone put into words once as “you can’t purchase anything with an empty cart”. What does that mean?
Sure, a straightforward understanding would be that you can’t achieve anything without action, but I think there’s a deeper insight than that. It’s reinforcing an individual idea that everyone comes up with on their own when they read that line.
What do you want to fill your cart with?
Maybe what you want to “purchase”, or work towards, is your mental health, your exercise routine, or your eating habits. Build your own career, social life, or academic record.
Maybe you simply just want to feel better. There are so many possibilities for what it could be, and to “purchase” it—placing item by item in your cart—takes time and patience.
To make myself feel better and to understand how people make themselves feel better, I had to build a mindset that wasn’t supported on beams of negative judgments.
Nobody is the same, nobody thinks the same, or reacts in identical ways; that’s why, when you’re down at the bottom of the dumps, I urge you place that first item in your cart. Don’t indulge in the overwhelming malice, and, although I know pain can feel comfortable, don’t drown yourself in hopelessness.
Even if you feel incredibly overlooked or lost, dipping into solitude and company, I understand you as a person.
Whatever struggles you may be facing, don’t lose that belief that there is a way and don’t lose that understanding, because you don’t purchase anything with an empty cart.
It takes one item at a time, and that first item in your cart is taking the step to try.
