Netta Weinstein

But we do tend to have these expectations that others who really prefer to be alone or spend a lot of time alone must not be liking it very much, must be having a hard time or there's something wrong with them.

Yes, absolutely.

So can we have a positive image of solitude?

What does that look like?

So we'll tend to think about, you know, positive solitude.

We'll tend to think about somebody like the Buddha or spiritual leaders.

Spiritual leaders around the world are kind of images of solitude that can be positive.

When we see our role models of who's allowed to love solitude, it tends to be the kind of big shot CEO, the kind of Silicon Valley exec who goes out on long retreats.

It tends to be philosophers or thinkers, great minds.

And so it's reserved for special pockets of society.

The rest of us, there's something a little off when we like it.

There definitely are.

And again, solitude isn't for everybody and at all times.

What we find, though, is when we talk to people about their experiences of solitude and, you know, we talk to them quite openly.

Some of our research had to do with understanding people's stories of solitude, good and bad.

We had people from around the world and ages 18 to 80 who we talked to.

We often found that, you know, all of us have moments of solitude that were positive, that are everyday solitude periods, that are nice, rewarding, sometimes special.

And we call those little S solitude versus this big Buddha-like S solitude.

And those little S moments are something that many of us can relate to when we stop and we think back.

to our own solitude time.