A couple months ago, I sat in the busy Whitefish Bay Stone Creek Coffee, when I (for lack of a better term), crashed out. While the specifics of the inciting incident don’t matter too much, it suffices to say that I had gotten my hopes about something I thought was a given — and I was going through the normal stages of disappointment and frustration with being forced to let go of something you cared about so much. 

I rushed out of the cafe, still fuming, and after a short walk arrived at my car. There, I could finally process all my emotions without having to worry about what some North Shore brunchers would think of me. Similar to many other incidents, my gut reaction was to call my friends. The first few calls rolled to voicemail, but when someone finally picked up, it was hard getting the reassurance that my brain so desperately needed. I hung up quickly, determined to find a way to remedy my sadness in a more efficient way possible, and there was only one person who would know the right way: myself. But the issue was, I didn’t know what would work best. Advice from my friends usually dictated how I reacted to these types of situations, but something felt different. This was something I needed to get over by myself, but I didn’t know how. 

Now, this conclusion seems obvious, but as we grow older and the confident individuality that had such a grasp on us during childhood slowly slips away, the extent to which we underestimate our own problem solving abilities grows rapidly.

As teenagers, the most important relationships in our lives are those between ourselves and our peers — not just friends, but almost everyone in our social spheres. The influence of our parents slowly diminishes, authority figures more so evolve into sources of rebellion, and the idea that our peers are constantly surveying our every move grows. But lost in all these sources of inspiration and influence is arguably the most important: ourselves.

Since that fateful January day, I’ve decided the relationship I want to work on the most is the one with myself. Within the teenage world, where socialization and how liked you are seems paramount, spending a significant amount of time alone is often looked down upon. If you spend all your time alone, there must be something wrong with you, right? However, if you remove yourself from the imaginary scrutiny teenagers think they’re under at all times, the ability to spend time alone and actually know yourself is a far better alternative than building a reliance on others to help process your emotions. It sounds easier said than done to just feel comfortable being by yourself a lot of the time, as the thought can always creep up in the back of your mind, “What will someone think of me if they see me alone there? Do people think I just have no friends? Is it really a choice, or just does no one want to spend time with me?” But like much of the pressure we put on ourselves as teenagers, all these concerns are phantom: no one is paying attention to you as much as you think.

 Even if it feels a bit lonely or silly to purposely cut out time to do an activity in public by yourself, the deepened understanding of what you like, what you value, and figuring out what your priorities are is a highly valuable skill.

It sounds a bit grim, but throughout your life, the one thing that will be constant is the relationship you have with yourself. Friends change, schools switch, and partners fade in and out of your life. That’s a given, but what isn’t always a given is our ability to feel confident in our own skills to cope. It can feel hopeless at times to try and process things without the help of others, and that’s where having good knowledge of what coping skills works for you comes in. Even though it feels necessary at times to maintain a good social life at all costs, building too much a reliance on anyone to truly make life fulfilling undermines your own ability to create happiness and purpose. 

Of course, having a variety of happy, healthy relationships is necessary for proper socialization and joy. It is by no means healthy to completely cut off those around you simply for the purpose of “self improvement,” and if no matter what you can’t keep people in your life, focusing on a relationship with yourself might not be the best call. However, if time and time again you feel unable to just sit with yourself, do any sort of solo activity, or rely heavily on others to process important events, I highly recommend a change. This doesn’t have to be drastic — it doesn’t even have to involve reducing the amount of time you spend with others. Cutting out a couple hours of intentional time per week to simply think by yourself and think about yourself — what you need or what you value — can make way more of a difference than you would think. As integral as loving relationships are to living a full life, it’s how we overcome challenging times when no one else is there to comfort us that truly defines who we are, and further, our ability to persevere.