Today more than 50% of American adults are single, and 31 million of them live alone — making up 28% of households.
Living alone has become more popular in recent years, which may be because there are lots of benefits to living alone. Although it can be lonely at times, it teaches you a lot of things about yourself. It can make us stronger people, giving us a better understanding of ourselves and improving our relationships with others.
If you have ever lived alone, you’ll be able to relate to these 6 benefits of living alone.
1. You Have a Better Relationship with Your Friends and Family
Living alone gives you the time to focus on what matters the most to you, so you often realize how important your friends and family truly are. You will cherish the past times when you lived with your friends and family, and to continue the relationships you must make a conscious effort to spend time with your friends. This often means that you enjoy and value their company even more.
2. You Have a Better Understanding of Your Own Abilities
Living in a solitary environment gives you the opportunity to learn more about yourself, such as your strengths, weaknesses, motivations, behaviors, and desires. This can help you to become more self-aware and introspective, and it also encourages you to mature and grow as a person. These skills will improve your life and possibly even the lives of others around you.
3. You Learn to Enjoy Your Own Company
Often people associate being alone with being lonely, but it can actually be very calming and peaceful. After a tough day, it feels great to be able to come home to your own private space. No noise, no mess, no drama to deal with – just peace.
This helps you to learn to enjoy your own company in lots of different ways; you can enjoy cooking alone, falling asleep alone, and being able to read and watch TV without being disturbed.
4. You Get Better at Managing Your Money
One of the main benefits of living alone is achieving true financial independence. People who live alone can’t rely on their housemates or parents telling them when rent and bills are due – you have to remember for yourself, or the bills won’t get paid! This quickly teaches you to be financially savvy, which is a skill that will benefit you for the rest of your life.
5. You Are More Willing to Take on Challenges and Responsibilities
When you spend your life living with your family and friends, you don’t need to learn to cope on your own. When you live alone, you are forced to learn about specific things like replacing light bulbs and de-icing fridges without any help from others. While this may seem like a challenge at the beginning, it teaches you to become truly independent. This also helps you to become more confident, as it instills in you personal pride and confidence in yourself.
6. You Get Better at Making Decisions
Another one of the main benefits of living alone is that you often get better at making decisions. People who live alone get to do what they want, but to start with you might not always know what you want. For example; which internet provider do you want to choose? How will you decorate the bedroom? What will your diet be like?
You will start to become more confident in making decisions for yourself, as the final decision is always up to you. To begin with this can be stressful, but over time it makes you a more self-reliant person.
