Welcome to ‘Me Time’, Alonement’s new, weekly series of 10-minute mini episodes from the archives. We’ll be showcasing the very best wisdom from some of our favourite former guests, in bitesize episodes designed for those smaller pockets of Alonement that you get throughout your day.
I'm kicking off with a slice of Alonement history: an excerpt from the episode with philosopher, author & School of Life founder Alain de Botton, originally recorded in November 2019. It was actually the first ever episode I recorded of this podcast, and one of the few I got to record in person ahead of the pandemic – at Alain’s office in north London. This recording happened at a time where I was still shaping my own understanding of alonement, and why it matters. Alain was challenging, in a way that proved invaluable. There’s no instant magic in taking time alone, he argued. Long periods of time alone won’t lead to self-knowledge, just like that. Essentially, we need to think about what we’re doing in that alone time, and make sure we’re spending that time in a conscious way - in order to make it ALONEMENT. In this clip, he takes us through a practical exercise we can do when we’re alone: an exercise that involves asking ourselves hard questions about our relationships, our career, and our friends – in order to work out who we are, and what we want; to tune into our intuition, rather than let our major life decisions be dictated by external influences.
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