Quietude
Thanksgiving wasn’t solitary, but it was quiet. It got me thinking about the concept of doing something new, taking a new life path, or being forced into a new work life stage, which can naturally lead to solitude.
Here’s a few synonyms I found for describing solitude:
isolation, loneliness, singleness, solitariness, aloneness, desert, privacy, quarantine, remoteness, retirement, seclusion, wilderness
I wonder about how so many ALUMRISERS, current or future, must be feeling today, while hunting for their next opportunity or chance to be a contributor.
I was told by someone that nearly a quarter to a fifth of the U.S. workforce will move into a new position or be displaced in the next 18 months (when I figure out where this came from, I’ll annotate or correct the stat).
Today, there’s not just large-scale job cuts all around us, but also conscious decisions being made by many to enter new life stages that reduce stress, reassert control or forge a new path.
Whether you’re entering retirement, feeling secluded at home with kids, or simply thrown out into the wilderness of a job hunt when you least expected it, there’s a chance you are experiencing or struggling against solitude, though I hope you are not.
Fellow ALUMRISERS - what about creating a new and more meaningful word to describe the stage you are in? – Quietude.
Quietude replaces the threat and implication of solitude with a conscious, deliberate state of mind that can only be reached properly in quiet times, guided not by what is missing, but by what is possible. What fits, and what you are uniquely suited for. What you both will and want to pursue.
Early holiday wish: this season, find quietude.