Living alone as an Adult

For the first time since college, I've been living alone for the past 20 days. While this was not part of the plan initially but things took shape in such a way that I have to live alone. I was a bit skeptical that I would not make it past 10 days since it can get a bit lonely but here we are. I guess it is part of the adulting process where you eventually get used to living this way. While I was in college I used to get super bored when I lived alone, the reasons could be that I was very young, not much to do once I was back in my PG and overall lack of maturity in dealing with things. Another important reason could be that I did not have any electronic gadgets back then and that lead to me just sitting alone and wasting time away.

But this time it is very different. I am far more mature than I was 8- 10 years back and having a full time job keeps you engaged anyway. Apart from that I cook and do half of the household activities and thanks to my maid who does most of the heavy lifting like cleaning utensils and housekeeping.

Living alone when I was in college gave me quite a perspective which I've seen most people learn when they are away from home in a different city for their jobs.

Below are a few advantages which I found of living alone.

1. You have your thoughts to yourself:- When you live alone you are not bombarded by external stimuli (excluding social media). You can really expand and reflect on your own thought process and ideas.
2. Experiment a lot:- When you start living alone every other thing that someone did for you becomes an experiment when you start doing it by yourself. This really expands your comfort zone and can make you think differently.
3. Enhancement of survival skills:- You take care of everything - bills, groceries, cooking, housekeeping, personal safety etc. It makes you good at taking care of yourself and your surroundings.
4. Deep work:- When you live alone the chances of you getting distracted by another person is very minimal. So you can really set your own schedule and do deep/focused work effectively.

One disadvantage that I found is that sometimes you can get carried away in your own world and there is no one who can put a check on you. You don't have an accountability partner who can say if you are wasting too much time or if you need to take a break etc.