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By Vania Audrey Graciela and Brigitta Pricillia Angelie. Vania and Brigitta are from Tangerang, Indonesia. Please read their entry and leave your comments below.

Have you ever felt that you are always alone even though you have so many people around you?

When you’re alone, you still feel you are not alone right? But, what if that feeling of loneliness is there even in the company of others? Whether when you’re with your friends or you’re just there by yourself, we all have our moments where we feel alone. You could say that it’s inevitable.

On one side, what Jean-Paul Sartre said is true. Even when we’re alone, just knowing that there are people there for us could easily make loneliness disappear. We can always recollect on all the different ways their company had been a joy.

On the other hand, there are many situations and problems we face that make us feel lonely. There are times where we are in a state where we feel as though no one understands us. Of course, there are solutions to those problems. However, we can’t just blame all the hardships in life to other people for being bad company.

We can’t just say that all those times when we are alone and we feel lonely is everyone else’s fault. If that was the case, wouldn’t that mean that we are giving false accusations to everyone around us? Despite feeling lonely sometimes, in those moments, we tend to forget that it was the complete opposite when we were in their presence.

Is it bad to feel lonely when we’re alone? Of course, we all need the company of others as we are social beings. However, we can’t simply run away from it either. Does that mean that bad company is always the cause of loneliness? Not necessarily. We need to understand that other people go through the same thing. And maybe, instead of saying that they are bad company, we can be the company that they need.

Feeling lonely can make us feel unaccepted by the society and also make us compare ourselves with others. We tend to feel like we are not enough for other people and it leads us to become a person we’re not, making us wear masks so we feel similar to other people. People want to be similar to others, so they feel that they have many things in common and will be accepted in the society.

Faking ourselves is definitely not okay. Maybe, you feel accepted at first. But, as time goes, you will realize that you are not happy. Faking yourself can lead into depression. You will feel that you have to act like some kind of way, you have to act like someone who is not you at all and it will eventually make you tired mentally. In some extreme cases, this can lead to an identity crisis. Whether we realize it or not, the longer our masks are on, the more we start to lose ourselves.

We can easily find happiness when we’re being ourselves. But if we don’t even know who our true self is, how is that possible? We would be trapped behind those masks until, sooner or later, those masks become our identity. By then, it wouldn’t be fake anymore. It would be a reality made out of lies.

Honestly, it’s perfectly fine if we feel lonely sometimes. As humans, of course we all feel lonely sometimes. But, the sad thing is, some people often feel that being lonely means that nobody cares about them. So, they create a fake version of themselves. They fake their personalities, their identity. Thinking that their true self is whatever others will accept.

We should understand that being lonely is perfectly fine and that it is a part of life that we will all go through. In the end of the day, embracing that loneliness and cherishing the company we do have is what matters. That’s how we can stay true with ourselves, that’s how we can keep ourselves from losing who we are.

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