10 Remarkably AMAZING Benefits Of Being Single

A common misconception is that single people are single by default through a lack of options and opportunities to be with someone else. Another popular assumption is that singlehood is a lifestyle bereft of joy, peace, comfort, fulfillment, and companionship.

We all define happiness differently. We all derive fulfillment differently. The beautiful aspect of sharing a life with another person is precisely the shared element. When you grow alongside another person, your branches entwine. You influence the shape and breadth of each other’s expansion. You lean on each other. You grow in the comfort of each other’s shade, away from the blazing sun. It is nice to have someone else beside you so you’re not alone in the vast wilderness.

However, there are numerous potential pitfalls to entwining your life with another’s. Furthermore, there is an incredible beauty to be found in being single and it comes precisely from the solo nature of the lifestyle.

Whether you’ve taken a break from a specific relationship, or from dating for a certain period of time or indefinitely, here are ten remarkable perks of being single.

1. You reap the extraordinary strength of being your first and only response.

When you are single, you are your first responder in any situation, negative or positive. Without having anyone to lean on, you’re required to provide your own comfort, counsel, encouragement, support, and courage. Thus, you flex muscles that many people inside relationships do not flex, at all or often. Muscles like self-counsel, self-reliance, gumption, and independence.

So often, women who are in relationships turn to their partners for guidance and expression in casual to crisis situations. “Honey, will you call the cable company and talk to them?” to “I get so anxious during these hospital visits. I can’t understand a thing. Will you do the talking?” Most women are raised to defer to a man to represent, speak, and manage their lives. So much so that many adult women defer not only to their partners but even their fathers for guidance and representation.

There are certain situations when it is healthy and recommended that we seek comfort and counsel from others. But lean on others too enthusiastically and you begin to infantilize yourself. You become their dependent and a liability to your own potential — the potential danger of having someone to lean on is you grow slanted as opposed to upright.

When you are single, the relationship you’re in is with your inner voice. You have a dialogue with your inner voice far more often and far more confidently than those whose first instinct is to turn to an external source of companionship, advice, encouragement, or validation. You learn and hone the skill for making quick and confident decisions on your own.

You become your own voice for brainstorming, discipline, encouragement, focus, and follow through. Thus, by being single, you develop the extraordinary strength that comes from being your first and only response.

2. You develop true self-esteem.

Authentic self-esteem is entirely manufactured and sustained by oneself. If your emotional security and happiness come from external sources like your job, partner, friends, income, physical appearance, or family, your security and happiness are conditional versus authentic. Your sense of esteem and confidence will always be susceptible to be being shaken. The light inside you will be the kind that is always in danger of being blown out by the storms of life.

When you take the time to be single, the sense of self you develop comes purely from within, anchored by things that cannot be shaken. Things like your character, intelligence, compassion, resilience, imagination, and creativity. It is informed by what you authentically bring, give, and stand for in the world.

Self-esteem is precisely that — the esteem you develop by and for yourself. What others think about you is their perception, kind praise and support they can offer that can lend joy and softness to your sense of self. But their opinion and presence will not be able to fully create or sustain your sense of self. Once you have built a self-esteem entirely anchored and sustained on your own, you’ll be lit by a flame that will withstand all the winds of life.

3. You become exactly the person you decide to design. You become the most vivid expression of yourself.

When you’re in a relationship, you design your expansion to grow in sync with your partner's. You turn and bend according to their branches for it is only healthy and respectful that you consider your partner’s tastes, needs, goals, and opinion when making decisions in your life. It is understood that you don’t go ahead and decide to live in a log cabin in the Catskills, or write a book, or travel through Southeast Asia without, at the very least, a thorough conversation with your partner.

It is only mature and considerate to weigh his or her needs and plans, short- and long-term when making any big decision. The potential danger is that certain goals or endeavors become silenced altogether. You start by shaving down your edges but if you sculpt and compromise yourself too enthusiastically, certain characteristics, aspirations, and possibilities may disappear entirely — your branches have entwined so tightly that you’ve choked off your breadth.

Giving yourself the time and space to be single lets you discover and develop your unique singularity to its greatest, boldest expansion. You become the result of your own design. You pursue exactly the life experiences you wish to pursue without having to compromise or negotiate any detail.

Without question, the pivotal turning point in my life was at 27 when my then-husband and I separated. I realized that the life I had planned was rendered obsolete. Therefore, I had an entirely new lease on life. Who did I want to become in place of the girl I used to be? From that moment on I’ve risked, endeavored, and achieved, creatively and professionally, as boldly as I have solely because I haven’t had to consider a partner’s schedule, comfort level, desires, income, dreams, or plans.

4. You share and stretch your heart more widely than you would if in a relationship.

When you’re in a relationship, chances are the person you talk and spend the most time with is your partner. In contrast, when you’re single, you get to share your energy, experiences, and time more widely and vigorously. The emotional closeness most people reserve for their partners can now be developed with your family, friends, and colleagues.

Similarly, the dedication and passion invested in a primary relationship can be redirected into your creativity, work, acts of service, or art. We all need connection to thrive. We need to connect with others because it fulfills the universal need to feel purposeful and of service. Investing your energy, creativity, passion, and heart in your partner is the traditional plan of action. However, when you allow yourself to grow beyond that path, you allow your heart to travel, meet, connect, love and impact innumerable lives.

5. You have all the alone time in the world to pursue your spiritual, creative, emotional, social and professional expansion.

There are some types of growth that happen through the mix and synergy of another person’s company. You learn things through shared conversations, experiences, trials, and successes.

But there is a particular type and intensity of growth that occurs only in solitude. The biggest breakthroughs and leaps are experienced only when you’ve allowed yourself the time and space to explore the landscape of your mind, your memories, and your present reality alone.

In particular, spiritual and emotional growth occur only through a consistent practice of self-reflection, through long walks taken by yourself, or by journaling, or simply, by sitting and listening to music or the wind in the trees, as you travel the terrain of your thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, the greatest creative breakthroughs and work occur in solitude, when you’ve tuned into your inner voice, far away from the clamor of other voices.

6. Only you decide how to use your time, energy, and space.

You never have to go to a brunch or an office party or a family reception by invitation of your partner. You socialize only when and how and with whom you want to. You don’t have to pause your day to consider and make dinner for two. You eat precisely when and what you want to. You never have to negotiate any bit of your short- or long-term plans.

You can meditate, eat, exercise, travel, work, create, invent, produce, risk, try, fail, succeed, renew, sleep, socialize, read, watch movies, take walks entirely on your own time, according to parameters designed precisely for your greatest happiness, growth, and fulfillment, without ever having to consider another person’s tastes, goals, plans, desires, or needs.

While couples love and revere the shared component of their lives, you are free to love precisely the opposite: the fact that you can grow and live without having to share your space or schedule, without having to make compromises or negotiations with your independence or tastes.

7. You develop a deep understanding of your authentic self.

Solitude is necessary for self-reflection and self-awareness, and self-reflection and self-awareness are necessary for self-esteem. Having the time and space to fill into who you are separate from another’s presence, needs, validation, opinion and desires allows you to fill into your true self. Furthermore, you become confident in your truth — you learn to sincerely admire and respect your unique qualities, which allows you to stand by your authentic self, your goals, and your standards.

Having the time and space to grow into a solid appreciation and awareness of yourself will allow you to move through life more confidently. You’ll find yourself being able to speak up for your value and standards in all sorts of settings, at work, with your family, in your friendships.

If you do decide to one day pursue a romantic relationship, you’ll feel this significant shift in how you carry yourself. So often, people pursue and develop relationships for extremely unhealthy reasons: they need external validation, they fear being alone, they love feeling needed, they want someone to take care of or to take care of them, they feel unworthy, insecure, or incomplete without the presence of a partner in their life.

If you are guilty of any of these behaviors, spending time on your own will allow you to trace the patterns as you reflect on your past relationships — you’ll realize the ways you need to evolve. Being single allows you to confront the shadows you were running from by falling into relationships and allows you to do the inner work you have been avoiding.

In doing so, you’ll grow immensely. You’ll become the happiest, healthiest, strongest and most confident version of yourself. If you do seek a relationship in the future, you’ll seek and create not from desperation, insecurity, and lack, but from strength, joy, and abundance.

8. Due to the other perks of being single, you’ll no longer be in danger of ever compromising or losing yourself in relationships.

A query I hear most often from women is, “How can I maintain my authentic self and also be in love with a man? I enter relationships totally as myself and then, I start compromising my standards and disappearing into his needs, his tastes, his dreams.”

Once you’ve spent the time and space to gain a solid understanding and appreciation of yourself, you’ll never again be in danger of losing or compromising yourself. See, you’ve developed a strong grip on who you are and your profound value. Where in the past you may have lost and betrayed yourself repeatedly, now, the notion of loosening and betraying your grip on your authentic self will have become unacceptable and impossible.

9. You will operate from abundance and you won’t panic from scarcity.

When a person hasn’t gained a true understanding and loyalty to their self-esteem, standards, and value, they’ll make choices through fear. In the past, I’ve often panicked when a loved one or partner has misunderstood me or was unhappy with me. I remember making amends more for my comfort, to appease my guilt, than for the fact I cared deeply about them or the sanctity and longevity of the relationship.

But now, when a relative or friend and I have had a misunderstanding or strife of any kind, I’m able to behave from a selfless place. I make amends, not for my comfort or to please them but to repair and honor the sanctity and health of the relationship.

In terms of dating life, when you’re able to live from a place of true self-esteem and abundance, you’re able to behave with honest intentions. You don’t hold onto a person simply to anesthetize your fear of being alone. You’re able to repair relationships only when reconciliation is the right choice for you, in the way that honors your truth without compromising your standards or your integrity.

You’re able to release people who are not healthy or fulfilling for your life. You’re able to identify through clear, calm eyes exactly the people who are.

10. You may become the best version of yourself.

Due to all the above, with your uniquely emboldened skill for self-reliance and self-esteem, your unlimited breadth of possibilities and choices, your completely self-defined schedule, you may become the most adventurous, articulate, decisive, confident, calm, happy, expanded, fun, and independent version of yourself.

You may realize that being single isn’t a default setting. You may find that it is actually your preferred way of life. You may find yourself choosing to be and remain single. For most of us single folk, that is precisely the choice we’ve made.

For us, singlehood is the life that fits our spirit, dreams, priorities, goals, and personality the best. We’ve realized that for us, singlehood allows us the freedom to grow and stand upright, precisely as we wish. We choose to live alone, proud in the blazing sun.

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Reema Zaman is an author, speaker, actress, and life-coach from Bangladesh. She is the author of the memoir I Am Yours. Her work has been published in Shape, Nailed, Full Grown People, The Huffington Post, and YourTango. She is the creator of Dear Reema, where she responds to readers' letters about healing sexual assault, anorexia, divorce, trauma from relationships and childhood, and gaining self-ownership. Reema is also the creator of You Are the Voice, a talk on healing and rising from rape and other adversities, that she performs at various colleges and other venues. For more, go to www.reemazaman.com.