The High Price We Pay for Our Fear of Loneliness

We often make some very peculiar and regrettable choices on the basis of a hidden and unmentioned fear: that of being alone. But once we realise that there isn t, in fact, anything to fear about being on our own, we ll be liberated to make some far healthier decisions. Sign up to our new newsletter and get 10% off your first online order of a book, product or class: https://bit.ly/2LayJ9F For gifts and more from The School of Life, visit our online shop: https://bit.ly/2PSno3S Our website has therapy, articles and products to help you lead a more fulfilled life: https://bit.ly/34NnCgB FURTHER READING You can read more on this and other subjects on our blog, here: https://bit.ly/2tEYiMX “It’s not hard to understand the fear of being alone: the empty apartment after work, the eerieness of Sunday afternoons, the sense of exclusion during the holidays… We know the agonies of being on our own very well. What is far less well understood, and less eloquently or frequently described, is the enormously high price exacted on the other side of the equation. The fear, or more often simply the phobia, of being alone is perhaps responsible for more unhappy relationships, more throttling of psychological development, more claustrophobia and more pent up misery than almost any other: it is – by any reckoning – one of the single greatest contributors to human misery and the driver of some of our weightiest and most unfortunate decisions. If only we were able to get the costs of what is for the most part a simple misapprehension clear in our minds, we might save ourselves a substantial portion of our lives…” MORE SCHOOL OF LIFE Visit us in person at our London HQ: https://bit.ly/35ThepC Watch more films on SELF in our playlist: http://bit.ly/TSOLself You can submit translations and transcripts on all of our videos here: https://www.youtube.com/timedtext_cs_panel?c=UC7IcJI8PUf5Z3zKxnZvTBog&tab=2 Find out how more here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6054623?hl=en-GB SOCIAL MEDIA Feel free to follow us at the links below: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theschooloflifelondon/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheSchoolOfLife Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theschooloflifelondon/ CREDITS Produced in collaboration with: Natalia Ramos http://www.nataliarama.com/ Title animation produced in collaboration with Vale Productions https://www.valeproductions.co.uk/