Beyond the obvious

Psychology of Color

/ James Browning

psych-paint

It began with a FaceBook post yesterday by a dear friend: Ok…if someone would let me borrow a fluffy pink tutu, a tiara, a pink teddy bear, and then spin me like a ballerina into a pool of PINK and GLITTER, drag me out and force me to watch a chick flick…Id really appreciate it. 🙂 *collapses*

From Various sources on the web I came up how pink might affect people and posted it on FB. That led to info about two other colors yesterday. Then this morning I took a deeper look into a wider spectrum of color effects and share the Cliffs Notes version here.

There are four psychological primary colors: red, blue, yellow and green.

RED is the most emotionally intense color. It stimulates a faster heartbeat and breathing, gets noticed and makes the wearer appear heavier. Pure red is the simplest color, with no subtlety. It is stimulating, friendly and suggests strength, and warmth. At the same time, it can be perceived as demanding, aggressive, defiance, and straining.

BLUE is the color of the mind and is essentially soothing. Strong blues will stimulate clear thought and lighter, soft blues will calm the mind and aid concentration. It is serene and mentally calming and the color of clear communication. However, it can also be perceived as cold, unemotional, unfriendly, cold and aloof.

GREEN strikes the eye in such a way as to require no adjustment whatever and is, therefore, restful. Being in the center of the spectrum, it is the color of balance. We are reassured by green, on a primitive level. It brings harmony, refreshment, rest and restoration. It can also be the color of stagnation, blandness and boredom.

YELLOW is the strongest color, psychologically. The right yellow will lift spirits and self-esteem. It is the color of confidence and optimism. Too much of it, or the wrong tone can cause self-esteem to plummet, giving rise to fear and anxiety. Yellow is perceived as strong and creative, but also irrational, fragile, and depressed.

In combination the four primary colors create seven other secondary psychological colors: purple, orange, pink, grey, black, white and brown.

PURPLE – Positive: Spiritual, wealth, authenticity, truth, feminine, romantic. Negative: Introversion, decadence, inferiority, uneasiness, unrest. Rare in nature, purple can appear artificial.

ORANGE – Positive: Comfort, food, warmth, security, sensuality, passion, abundance, fun. Negative: Deprivation, frustration, frivolity, immaturity.

PINK – Positive: Tranquility, nurture, warmth, femininity, love, sexuality, survival of the species. Negative: Inhibition, emotional claustrophobia, emasculation, physical weakness.

GREY – Positive: Neutrality. Negative: Lack of confidence, dampness, depression, hibernation, lack of energy. Only color that has no direct psychological properties.

BLACK – Positive: Sophistication, glamour, security, emotional safety, efficiency, substance. Negative: Oppression, coldness, menace, heaviness. (PS: It is a myth that black clothes are slimming).

WHITE – Positive: Hygiene, sterility, clarity, purity, cleanness, simplicity, sophistication, efficiency. Negative: Sterility, coldness, barriers, unfriendliness, elitism.

BROWN – Positive: Seriousness, warmth, Nature, earthiness, reliability, support. Negative: Lack of humor, heaviness, lack of sophistication.

For me this info will get filed mentally under “conversation starters”. It was fun and interesting to dig up. I am grateful for the simple comment of a friend that was the catalyst to go find this stuff. (Thanks K.!)

Each day has a color, a smell.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Primary source: http://www.colour-affects.co.uk/psychological-properties-of-colours

When the Student Is Ready

/ James Browning

graceIt was a slow realization to arrive, but emphatically I know my thoughts shape my existence more than any other factor. When it was suggested years ago that positive affirmations work, I could not grasp how saying and momentarily thinking particular thoughts could be life changing. It took a long time to consistently try them and then was surprised to find affirmations actually work. But it was a real struggle at first.

By choosing to think and say positive affirmations as true, the subconscious is forced into one of two reactions – avoidance or reappraisal. The bigger the issue the bigger the gap between the positive affirmation and the perceived inner truth and the more likely that one is going to experience resistance. This is where the subconscious finds it easier to stay with its perceived inner truth and avoid the challenge using any means at its disposal to avoid examining the issue. You will recognize this reaction by a strong negative feeling inside as you state the positive affirmations. Equally if your experience a sense of joy and well-being, your mind is instinctively responding to something it believes to be true. When you get this emotion, you know your affirmations are working!

Happiness…
Happiness exists where I choose to look for it.
I accept the good that is flowing into my life.
I smile and my life lightens.
Gratitude expands happiness.

Love…
The warmth of love surrounds me.
I appreciate those who love me.
I unconditionally give my love..
I am ready to be in love.

Forgiveness…
I release myself from my anger and let the past go.
The past is forgiven. I am thankful.
I live in the “now” each moment of each day.
Today, I forgive myself.

Because affirmations actually reprogram your thought patterns, they change the way you think and feel about things, and because you have replaced dysfunctional beliefs with your own new positive beliefs, positive change comes easily and naturally. This will start to reflect in your external life, you will start to experience seismic changes for the better in many aspects of your life. http://www.vitalaffirmations.com/affirmations.htm#.UZolF3co6Uk

A practice I first tried about six years ago was to regularly watch the sunrise and repeat affirmations from a sheet of them I had accumulated. There was no one else around or noise and distractions. As the days passed I began to notice a difference in my mental attitude; slowly but surely it improved consistently. Now I know not to scoff at the good that simple things can do. Something does not have to be complicated in order to make a big different. I am grateful for the personal discovery that affirmations work. I continue the practice to this day. Insight comes when the student is ready to see it.

Belief consists in accepting
the affirmations of the soul;
unbelief, in denying them.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Frequently Uncomfortable

/ James Browning

2706077104_70df96a778_zPurely by personal choice soon I will be retiring from professional life in order to pursue a myriad of other interests. It’s an agenda far too long to ever complete, but I am exceeding excited and grateful to have the time to apply myself to it. My ‘new life’ will require some fairly radical habit changes. Lately, on and off, I have been reading thoughts on-line others have shared about breaking routine. Here’s a list of ten things I can start applying even before my time is my own:

  1. Hold a conversation with a new person everyday. Expand your world beyond people similar to you. You’ll learn about ways of life and outlooks on life that are incredibly different from your own.
  2. Avoid wasting time. You have far too little. Don’t watch television. Yeah, I know, you mostly watch the history and science channels. People tell me that all the time. Turn it off and go do something else. Anything else.
  3. Waste time. Relaxation frees the subconscious to connect the blocks of your knowledge and experiences. When you free your mind your subconscious has more power to bring in random thoughts or connect items that are not necessarily related to each other.
  4. Use your lunch, not just for lunch with friends or to run errands. Go to museums, new restaurants, new parks, try new foods. So many people waste this time working at their desks or going to the same restaurant with the same people and eating the same food.
  5. Read books from the Dummies series on subjects you have no use for. Even better, read children’s books; they’re faster. There are millions of subjects you could expose yourself to with a few minutes each day.
  6. Play with Legos and Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs. The building challenges, the creation of something quickly and easily is both a puzzle solving exercise and builds visualization skills. In addition, anything that triggers childhood memories is good.
  7. Create a piece of art and enter it into an art exhibit. My guess, call it an educated guess, is that most of my readers can not even take this suggestion seriously. You have “No talent, time, tools, techniques, yada yada yada.” So how about taking some of that tenacity and courage and give art a try?
  8. Try writing a short story. You don’t have to be Hemingway. Trouble coming up with an idea? Write the story about a character doing what you do, at work, home, having fun, whatever. Two thousand words are all you need.
  9. Expose yourself to a wide variety of music. Thanks to the internet you can now listen to anything you can imagine and more. …if you normally listen to American Pop then it’s time to try some jazz and classical.
  10. Change your schedule… You’ll see your world differently, you’ll sense different emotions in the people you meet and hear different sounds.  http://www.pragmaticmarketing.com/resources/ten-ways-to-routinely-break-your-routine-vividly

Achieving a different life lived with fresh experiences and lessons is simple, but difficult. Regardless of the challenges I am marching confidently toward my new way of being with conviction. This change of direction seems so kindred, yet just out of reach.

Change is frequently uncomfortable, but in the friction with old habits lies new ways of seeing, being and understanding.  I am alive with anticipation and gratefulness for the opportunity life is affording me.

The only person who is spiritually smart
is the one who has learned how to learn,
unlearn, and change directions instantly,
and start all over again, if your soul calls for it.
Michelle Casto

Pleasure From Such Little Effort

/ James Browning

old booksflat,550x550,075,fGladly I can point my finger at my high school English teacher for awakening my awareness to Victorian poetry. What began when I was fifteen has grown to become a treasured appreciation. I find solace in words as they dance off my tongue when I read evenly metered rhyming poems aloud (or mentally to myself); so much pleasure from such  little effort.

If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf,
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather,
Blown fields or flowerful closes,
Green pleasure or gray grief;
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf.

If I were what the words are,
And love were like the tune,
With double sound and single
Delight our lips would mingle,
With kisses glad as birds are
That get sweet rain at noon;
If I were what the words are,
And love were like the tune.

If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death,
We’d shine and snow together
Ere March made sweet the weather
With daffodil and starling
And hours of fruitful breath;
If you were life, my darling,
And I your love were death.

If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy,
We’d play for lives and seasons
With loving looks and treasons
And tears of night and morrow
And laughs of maid and boy;
If you were thrall to sorrow,
And I were page to joy.

If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May,
We’d throw with leaves for hours
And draw for days with flowers,
Till day like night were shady
And night were bright like day;
If you were April’s lady,
And I were lord in May.

If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain,
We’d hunt down love together,
Pluck out his flying-feather,
And teach his feet a measure,
And find his mouth a rein;
If you were queen of pleasure,
And I were king of pain.
A Match by Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837–1909)

My high school English teacher was Miss Upchurch, who I have written about before –  https://goodmorninggratitude.com/2011/05/23/388/ Her personal unrequited love story combined with what she taught created a permanent place in my mind and heart. I am grateful to have known her and for the love of poetry she caused to begin in me.

A good poem is a contribution to reality. The world is never the same
once a good poem has been added to it. A good poem helps to change
the shape of the universe, helps to extend everyone’s knowledge
of himself and the world around him.
Dylan Thomas

Mostly We Are All The Same

/ James Browning

coexist-bumper-stickerWe’re all pieces of the same ever-changing puzzle;
some connected for mere seconds, some connected for life,
some connected through knowledge, some through belief,
some connected through wisdom, some through Love,
and some connected with no explanation at all.
Yet, as spiritual beings having a human experience,
we’re all here for the sensations this reality
or illusion has to offer. The best anyone can hope for
is the right to be able to Live, Learn, Love then Leave.
After that, reap the benefits of their own chosen existence
in the hereafter by virtue of simply believing
in what they believe. As for here, it took me a while
but this progression helped me with my life:
“I like myself. I Love myself. I am myself.”
Stanley Victor Paskavich

In childhood my family attended Christian churches. Depending on who I went with, I attended Baptist, Methodist and Church of Christ. There were differences, but on the whole all of them seemed to more or less represent the same general beliefs. As a teenager I went with friends to a Catholic church and a Jewish synagogue. Some dissimilarity was evident, but both seemed to have more in common that different.

As an adult I have spent time reading numerous Buddhist texts and a book or two on the Hindu religion. I have read the Koran from front to back and spent time learning about groups like the Sufi’s. Some more esoteric principles such as that of the Rosicrucians caught my interest for a time. Being part Native American brought a natural curiosity to learn about Cherokee views of  life, death and the hereafter.

A part of my study included examining the ancient beliefs of groups like Gnostics and Essenes along with learning about Egyptian gods like Amon-Ra and Osiris and Greek mythological gods Poseidon, Zeus and others.  I’ve read as best I could over half of the available codices translated from the Dead Sea scrolls and those found at Nag Hammadi. Assorted other groups such as Agnostics, Atheists, Pagans and Wiccans found their way onto my path of learning as well.

Huston Smith wrote, “Walnuts have a shell, and they have a kernel. Religions are the same. They have an essence, but then they have a protective coating. This is not the only way to put it. But it’s my way. So the kernels are the same. However, the shells are different.”

While I went looking for it, I did not find a grand revelation. However, a fair amount of what I assimilated has stayed with me. Boiled down together the essence of my general belief about religion, faith and beliefs is ALL people have more far more in common than differences. Just about everyone wants the freedom to believe as he or she chooses, desires peace and happiness and to be allowed to love, protect and provide for their family and loves ones.

I am grateful that about fifteen years of on again/off again focused study and learning led me down a long path that ultimately looped me back to simplicity. For every difference there are at least ten similarities for people from all walks of life, everywhere. Mostly we are all the same.

My religion consists of a humble admiration
of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself
in the slight details we are able to perceive
with our frail and feeble mind.
Albert Einstein

Legacy Of Lack

/ James Browning

treasureI don’t want whatever I want.
Nobody does. Not really.
What kind of fun would it be
if I just got everything
I ever wanted just like that,
and it didn’t mean anything?
What then?
Neil Gaiman

Lack – Deficiency or absence; to be without; to be short or have need of something.

Once upon a time, with roots that go back to medieval marketplaces featuring stalls that functioned as stores, shopping offered a way to connect socially. But over the last decade, retailing came to be about one thing: unbridled acquisition, epitomized by big-box stores where the mantra was “stack ’em high and let ’em fly” and online transactions that required no social interaction at all — you didn’t even have to leave your home.  Stephanie Rosenbloom http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/08/business/08consume.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

In childhood I learned a legacy of lack. My family was poor in many ways: financially, morally and spiritually. Such an environment shapes one of two types of people: 1) another just like the others with photo-copied habits and beliefs or 2) someone who does their best to be the opposite of what they saw and experienced. It has long been my desire to be one of the latter. I have consistently applied myself to being so, although in ways not nearly as successfully as I wish.

Four  ‘extra’ pair of unworn jeans, three new ‘backup’ cases for my iPhone, four ‘replacement’ Timex “Indiglo” watches, eight or ten new pair of drug store reading glasses ‘for when I need them’ and so on. All of those things are in my possession now. If thinking about them did not convince me I had a “little problem”, writing them down certainly did.

Always I have told myself I buy ‘extras’ because I like something very much and want to have ‘replacements’ on hand when what I am using wears out. “They stop making what I like” has often been reasoning I add to my pile of logic. When I step back a bit and take a broadened view I can see stirred into my thinking is not only what I consider completely rational. “Perception of future lack”, “conspicuous consumption” and even “low level greed” is mixed in as well. Ouch, that hurts!

My plans do not include suddenly giving my “backups” away to charity, although I will continue what has been my past practice: give to friends when they are in need. What I have now is front of mind awareness of my tendency to “buy stuff”. With awareness can come understanding. With understanding can come change. Further, it is important to be thankful I have the ability in the first place to purchase the majority of my wants. What matters is what I do with it!

As I open more to learning and practicing wise and prudent ways of being, lessons in the classroom of wisdom continue to arrive in an ever-increasing quantity. I am indeed truly and deeply blessed. I have no clear spiritual understanding or profound concept of God and the Universe to be overtly causing my growth. But deep down I suspect all are at work though my porthole of gratitude. Only when the student is ready can he be taught.

…what you need
and what you want
aren’t the same things…
Cherise Sinclair

All Of You Are Right

/ James Browning

SAMSUNG DIGITAL CAMERA“Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world” wrote German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. It’s so easy to think my take on things is the clearest view of reality when everyone has their own perspective that is just as valid for them. I learn nothing by regurgitating what I believe to be true, but can have my perception widened by listening to others with an open mind.

Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, “Hey, there is an elephant in the village today.”

They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, “Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway.” All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.

“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man who touched his leg.

“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.

“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They began to argue about the elephant and every one of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?” They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched a different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features that you all said.”

“Oh!” everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.

There is much wisdom to gained in allowing room for other viewpoints. Frequently accepting a different point of view does not invalidate mine. It adds to and expands it instead. When I am able to replace my opinion with someone else’s notion of things I mature in knowledge, open-mindedness and my ability for further growth is broadened. I am grateful my beliefs are often shown to me to be true, but just as thankful to find and accept frequently they are not!

Always keep in mind that no single person, place,
or thing can force you to believe or disbelieve anything.
Perhaps this was true when you were a child, but not now.
Now you have the independence to choose what you believe.
Your knowing is yours.
Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

Dew On the Flower of Life

/ James Browning

ku-xlargeLeo Tolstoy wrote, “It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness”. Experience has taught me the truth of his words. I have loved some women mainly for what was on the outside, while ignoring, for a time, what emanated from within. Of course, every time I got my heart broken. Looking from the vantage point of today it is simple to see why.

Soul, heart and mind are on the “inside” of a person. They’re not worn where its easy to see their qualities and character. The “inside of a book” takes time to know. The bewildering part has been the more beautiful the woman I loved, to a person, the more self-conscious and down on herself she was.

In particular, people tend to have a distorted appreciation of how they look. There are a few people who look in the mirror and think they look terrific all the time; but they are few. Many more look in the mirror and see an acne scar which they think dominates their appearance—or a prominent nose, or a weak chin, or a receding hairline, or gray hair (even when, sometimes, they have no visible gray hair), or eyebrows that are too thin or two thick, and so on.

The mirror lies. As people tend to see everything in life as they expect it to be, they see, especially, in the mirror, what they expect to see. Elderly people looking in the mirror do not recognize that they have grown older, until, suddenly, they find themselves in front of a different mirror and their face is lit up more brightly, or just differently. It is usually a disconcerting and uncomfortable experience. Some people give up looking at their reflection. They purposely turn away when they walk by a mirror. Sometimes they unexpectedly walk by a full length mirror at night and do not see their accustomed reflection. Rather, they see a parent reflected back at them. All of this seems new to them because they have unexpectedly observed themselves from a different perspective. Fredric Neuman, M.D. http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fighting-fear/201212/mirrors-lie-the-fallibility-perception-and-memory

Admittedly, I am not completely comfortable ‘seeing’ myself in a mirror. When I go past just acknowledging my reflection and really look at myself, it appears the years showing exceed the number I have lived. I’m told I look younger than I am, but my reflection appears the reverse to me. My hair has thinned more than I really want to notice and I have a “belly”. My skin is changing texture and growing rougher. I see small veins showing on my ankles. Lines and creases are chiseled into my face.. It’s all okay though, or at least moving in that direction. With making myself see what is from a different perspective awareness is growing. And awareness is were accurate, and thereby, confidence begins.

My perception of my image in a mirror is slowly changing. By paying more attention and really seeing what is there, I am becoming able to look past what I regret and see what I have to be grateful about. Over and over its been proven to me what I find gratitude for becomes improved. And so it is with my sense about my appearance. Gratefulness is dew on a flower of life that makes it shine and sparkle.

Above all, don’t lie to yourself.
The man who lies to himself
and listens to his own lie
comes to a point that he cannot
distinguish the truth within him,
around him, and so loses
all respect for himself and for others.
And having no respect he ceases to love.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Backwards Wishing

/ James Browning

3005147-poster-1960-caught-stress-spiral-innovate-your-day-8-minutes-ready-set-pauseYou’ll know that you are no longer self-righteous the day you drop the romantic notion that if only your seventh grade teacher could see you now, she would be proud of you. Say goodbye to her. You don’t need her approval anymore. From now on, you are on your own.

Last night after patiently pondering those words from “The Art of Imperfection” by Veronique Vienne, a light went off in my head. Well, it was actually more of a long sigh of relief after a small cleansing epiphany that is now with me to stay.

First, I agreed there are a couple of teachers I have wished could see me now. That admission was quickly followed with a mental list of former lovers, classmates, past co-workers, lost friends, departed family and such, who at one time or another, I have “wished could see me now”. The realization alone that I could let go of that sort of “backwards wishing” lightened the emotional baggage I tote around by at least a few pounds.

I have learned that if you must leave a place that you have lived in and loved and where all your yesteryears are buried deep, leave it any way except a slow way, leave it the fastest way you can. Never turn back and never believe that an hour you remember is a better hour because it is dead. Passed years seem safe ones, vanquished ones, while the future lives in a cloud, formidable from a distance. From West with the Night” by Beryl Markham

Beginning to let go of “wishing they could see me now” is a healthy step toward letting go “backwards thinking” of other types such as “wish she was still in love with me” or “wish I hadn’t made that mistake”. Loosening my tight grip on this sort of emotional debris has begun to let me see what is underneath them. I am discovering hiding behind my ‘wishing’ is always either shame or regret. Those parasites start to fade a little when I face their roots head on. Knowing what I know now, there is no turning back. I am grateful for my adjusted perspective that will make it so.

Take it from me:
If you hear the past speaking to you,
feel it tugging up your back
and running its fingers up your spine,
the best thing to do.
the only thing, is run.
Lauren Oliver

The Perceiver’s Vantage Point

/ James Browning

tumblr_m3wbh9fPRD1qzjwnko1_500Being solitary is being alone well:
being alone luxuriously immersed in doings of your own choice,
aware of the fullness of your own presence
rather than of the absence of others.
Because solitude is an achievement.
Alice Koller

For a long time the beliefs I carried made Alice Koller’s statement impossible for me to grasp and appreciate. Knowing people who were alone used to bring thoughts tinted with pity, suspicion and sympathy. I was compassionate, but looked at such people as not being whole. Surely there must be something wrong with them. In other words, something would be wrong with me if I was alone.

The glass that life is viewed though is only the perceiver’s vantage point. It can feel true and be far from it. I did not realize my fear of being along drove me from one relationship to another. I honestly thought I was normal and feeling incomplete without a woman in my life was typical for every man. Without any rational examples in childhood of what love between a man and woman was supposed to look like, I ended up believing it meant ‘to be with someone’.

So many people are terrified of their own company. The thought of being at home, by themselves, with nobody to talk to, is debilitating for them. So they do everything possible to avoid just that; they create an overactive social life so that they are always with friends, or they become workaholics so they can drown themselves in their jobs, or sadly many even become alcoholics; but all with the same goal: to avoid the pain and darkness that they feel by being alone.  http://jeanniepage.com/2011/04/09/the-art-of-being-alone/

My phobia of being alone is not unique to me. Many carry the burden with a fear greater than heights, snakes or even death. My irrational fear was based on the belief that being “alone” was like an illness or some other unfortunate condition that happened and had to be cured. It was a great sense of failing; a sort of emptiness when a romantic partner (or several) was not in my day-to-day life.

The shape of my thinking today about being alone is quite different. Not only do I not fear aloneness as I once did, I actually enjoy it a good bit of the time. And that amount seems to be growing as who I wish to be and who I am become more parallel.

The pain in loneliness comes from all that surrounds it, not the act itself. And when you spend enough quality time alone, you realize that it is indeed nothing to fear. You realize that you, by yourself, are happy and are confirmed in life and worth by everything around you. Chelsea Fagen http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/the-best-part-of-being-alone/

I don’t love being alone all of the time but find the peace in it more and more. Aloneness is not for the faint of heart for it will twist and wring a person at any point in their psyche where one feels ‘less-than’. Being solitary forced me to wrestle  a long list of inadequacies. The attacks of loneliness I felt were actually those things assaulting me when I was not distracted by a relationship. Being alone was damned hard and the first two years by my-self felt like they were going to kill me sometimes. But I survived and am so much better for it. Will I always be alone? I don’t know and hope not. However, today I am grateful to know alone or not is a choice I can make and not a perceived lack I have to fill.

I don’t want to be alone,
I want to be left alone.
Audrey Hepburn