LIFE LESSON
Don't Live Alone Without Reading This
3 Things You Should Know Before Living Alone
There is one denying that most of “us” has grown up with our parents and siblings. But at some stage in every person’s lifespan, it becomes almost indispensable to get your own place. You grow up, you mature and you become responsible. You can not live in your childhood bedroom forever. It’s time to stand up on your own feet; spread your wings and soar like an eagle.
No matter how much you love your parents/siblings/friends/relatives, you will eventually strive for your own space at a particular point in your life. And it is totally normal to think that way. Trust me on this one folk. I mean, I personally have never met a single person in my life who doesn't want to get their own place. [there is a note in the last paragraph, do check it out]
It doesn’t matter if it’s a small apartment, house, condo unit, or even just a rented room; there’s nothing rather like having your own place. Moving into your own place is a galvanizing milestone, but it can also make you feel both overwhelming and scary. I have lived alone for almost a year for my graduation and I have experienced a lot in that segment of my life.
The good, the bad, the ugly, and whatnot. This is a listicle encompassing the challenges which I have faced during the period. If you are the one which is eager and excited about doing the whole thing, you need to know these things which no one tells you before.
Budgeting
Living alone can be really expensive at times. It means that there’s no one to split the rent and bills of electricity, water, Netflix/internet, gas, phone bill, etc. Even if you think that you can singlehandedly can cover all of these expenses, there is more to it. The other expenses you are supposed to be handling on your own are groceries, personal care products like tissues, toilet paper, and shampoo, laundry detergent, mopping liquid, or even just a new towel or table if you need it. And I can list them out all day. Because of this, many people who live alone have a difficult time balancing their expenses. I certainly did.
Solution:-
- Start with budgeting. Create a table or chart demonstrating all of your expenses in a month and your monthly income. So every time you will buy something, you can deduct that specific account from your monthly expenses. By practicing this, you can keep an eye on your budget and also the probability of you being “broke”. I recommend that doing online on google docs (or any of your preferred application). By doing it online, you will have access to it anywhere and anything and on any device, all you have to do is log in with your Google account and you are good to go.
- Don’t be impulsive about buying new things. There is this technique that I used to practice to minimize my unnecessary expenditures. Let’s say if you think that you need to upgrade your chair. Wait for a week to process this urge in your mind. If the urge is still eating your mind up even after a week, then you know that you really need to upgrade that chair. Otherwise don’t upgrade it.
- Don’t buy a ton of groceries at a time even if you think you need it. Supermarkets or Grocery stores are visually and psychologically designed to make people buy more stuff. To avoid falling for this inevitable conspiracy, simply just make a to-buy list before going to the store. Yes! that is exactly how you do it. Going without a list can make you ambiguous and you probably will end up buying things that are not necessarily required to you. Trust me you will remorse for your grocery choices after a while.
The Mundane Catastrophe
The first few weeks or even months will be very entertaining for you. But there does exist a saturation point and when you hit that threshold, it is going to be a mundane experience for you. You will have a plethora of time on your clock to spare. Oh! you will get sick of watching Netflix & Youtube, reading books, and whatever your hobbies are.
Even if you have tons and tons of friends, relatives, a girl/boyfriend, sometimes being home alone at night is a buzzkill. You think you will play tic-tac-toe, huh? Well, guess what? You are alone biatch. It's a multiplayer game. Technically, you can play that game on your own. But, just picture yourself doing that, how ridiculous of an experience would that be? Talking to yourself, you will sound like a maniac.
Solution:-
- Be friends with your neighbor. Watching movies alone can be a downer at times. Sometimes you just need someone to be able to rant in the room right next to you or to binge watch some Netflix on a movie night. Or they can give you a hand on some kind of heavy work if you are planning to do like moving a couch.
- All of these times when you will be lonesome can play games with your mental health. A recent study posits that adults who live alone have an 80% higher chance of having depression than those who live with other people. Practice Exercising. I can not overstate the benefits of exercise. Exercise acts as a viable treatment for depression and stress. Apparently, exercise prompts the corresponding structural alteration to the brain as antidepressants — neuroplasticity, or synthesizing new neural pathways, and development in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s usually shrunken in people bearing depression.
- Go Out More. Make sure that you’re planning enough social events outside of your home. It doesn’t have to be a big ‘event’ like a concert or stand-up, you can make it small and sweet like a dinner or a theatre play with your loved ones or your friend. Having a night where your mind is busy and occupied can be really soothing. It will emancipate you from your ‘mind bubble’.
- Just get a cat/dog. But don't forget that with great power comes great responsibility.
- Do Something Productive/Creative. ‘Living alone’ more like ‘self-isolation’ is inexplicably the perfect time for you to explore yourself. Most people don't even know what they are interested in or good at. I know it sounds sketchy, but please can you list me out five things that you are good at or interested in. Try out doing peculiar things, who knows, you could be brilliant at painting portraits or writing articles. Keeping yourself engaged at some task will keep you focused and entertained. Here are some activities that you could try out:
— Write fiction/articles/poetry/blog
— Decorate and organize your home
— Learn a new language or a new skill like mastering the chess game
— Talk to strangers online (be careful)
— Learn to play a new instrument like piano
— Write a postcard to your friend
Tons of Responsibilities (get out of your comfy shell)
Yup! there it comes. Let me explain this to you. Let's say that your sink is clogged. So, whom do you expect to deal with that? As no one is there to have that figure that out, its entirely on your shoulder. Or else it will stay clogged forever. But, what if the toilet is clogged? Yep, you have to deal with that too. Just take the plunger(if you have one) and do the job. Why is there a power cut in just your apartment? Well, guess what? You forgot to pay the electricity bill. Shit like this happens all the time. You will have to be present at your apartment to receive a delivery as you have no one there on whom you can rely on. No one is there to wake you up in the morning, like your mom/dad used to.
Solution:-
- Just put a bunch of reminders on your phone to abstain yourself from forgetting to pay the bills.
- You could watch online tutorials on how to deal with a clogged sink
Living alone sometimes feels like both a blessing and a curse. It has its own virtues and vices. The things that I have listed out are the worst part of it. There are way too many benefits of living alone. You will have your own space to do anything you fancy; like you could roam around naked and not worry about anyone noticing it. There is no one present to judge you for all of your actions. Living alone lets you explore and discover you as an individual. And you get a tone of ‘Me Time’, and you low-key know that you need them.
Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won’t either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love it. You have to feel it. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart.
— — — Louise Erdrich
Quick Fact:- Did you know that 35.7 million Americans live alone?
Ignorable Section:-
1 I went all intense in the first paragraph about the whole moving out thing. It doesn't always have to be an urge deep down inside you to move out and “get your own place”. There are other factors that exist out there in the real world which expedites and necessitates ‘the process’. You know what; I am just gonna list them out here:
- You've got a job far away from your current living location
- You gotta move into a College/University dorm
- The current living condition disgusts you and deep down you realize that it has been influencing you toxically
- You get evicted from the apartment that you live in for loud music. [and this one right here never happened to me ever. like ever.]
2 In the ‘The Mundane Catastrophe’ section, I have cited different links of the most appropriate websites you need to go to. And I am not associated with any of those websites nor are those affiliate links. Yeah! just wanted to put that out there.
Thanks for reading…
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