This is the most important skill nobody taught you

This is the most important skill nobody taught you This is the most important skill nobody taught you Before  dying  at the  age  of 39,  Blaise Pascal  made huge  contributions  to  both  physics and mathematics,  notably  in  fluids,  geometry, and  probability. This work, however,  would  influence more than just the  realm  of the natural sciences. Many fields that we now  classify  under the heading of social science did, in fact, also  grow out  of the foundation he helped  lay.Follow Ladders on Flipboard!Follow Ladders’ magazines on Flipboard covering Happiness, Productivity, Job Satisfaction, Neuroscience, and more!Interestingly  enough, much of this was  done  in his  teen  years, with some of it coming in his  twenties.  As an adult, inspired by a  religious  experience,  he actually started to move towards philosophy and theology.Right before his death, he was  hashing  out  fragments  of private thoughts that would later be  released  as a collection by  the  name  of  Pensées.While the  book  is mostly a mathematician’s case for choosing a life of faith and belief,  the  more  curious thing  about  it is  its  clear and  lucid  ruminations  on what it means to be human.  It’s a  blueprint  of our psychology long before psychology was  deemed  a formal  discipline.There is  enough  thought-provoking  material in it to quote,  and it attacks  human  nature from a variety of  different angles,  but one of its most  famous  thoughts  aptly  sums up  the core of his argument:“All of humanity’s  problems  stem from  man’s  inability to sit  quietly  in a  room  alone.”According to  Pascal,  we fear  the  silence  of existence,  we  dread  boredom  and  instead  choose  aimless  distraction,  and  we  can’t help  but  run from the  problems  of our  emotions  into the false comforts of the mind.The  issue at the  root, essentially,  is  that  we  never  learn  the  art of solitude.The  Perils  of Being ConnectedToday, more than ever, Pascal’s message  rings  true.  If there is one word to describe the progress made in the last 100 year s,  it’s  connectedness.Information  technologies have dominated our cultural  direction.  From the telephone to the  radio  to the TV to the internet, we have found ways to bring us all closer together, enabling constant  worldly  access.I can sit in my office in Canada and transport myself to practically anywhere I want through Skype. I can be on the other side of the world and still know what is going on at home with a quick browse.I don’t think I need to highlight the benefits of  all this.  But  the  downsides  are also beginning to show.  Beyond the current  talk about  privacy and data collection, there is perhaps an even more  detrimental  side-effect  here.We  now live  in  a world where  we’re  connected  to  everything  except  ourselves.If Pascal’s observation about  our  inability to sit quietly in a room by ourselves is true of the  human condition  in general, then the  issue has certainly been augmented  by an order of magnitude due to the options available t oday.The logic is, of course,  seductive.  Why be alone when you never have to?Well,  the answer is that  never being alone is not the same thing as never feeling alone.  Worse yet,  the  less comfortable you are with solitude, the  more likely it is that you won’t know yourself.  And then, you’ll spend even more time avoiding it to focus elsewhere.  In the process,  you’ll become addicted to the same technologies that were meant to set you free.Just  because we can use the noise of the world to  block out  the discomfort of dealing with ourselves doesn’t mean that this discomfort goes away.Almost everybody thinks of  themselves as self-aware.  They think they know how they feel  and what they want and what their problems are.  But the truth is that very few people really do.  And  those that do will be the first to tell  how  fickle  self-awareness is and  how much alone time  it  takes to get there.In today’s world,  people can go their whole lives without truly digging beyond  the surface-level masks they wear;  in fact, many do.We are  increasingly  out of touch with who we are, and that’s a problem.Boredom  as a Mode of  StimulationIf we take it back to the fundamentals - and this is something Pascal touches on, too -  our  aversion  to solitude  is really an  aversion  to boredom.At its core,  it’s not necessarily that we are addicted to a TV set  because there is something uniquely satisfying about it, just like  we are not addicted to most stimulants  because the  benefits  outweigh  the downsides.  Rather,  what  we are really addicted to is a  state  of  not-being-bored.Almost  anything  else that controls our life in an  unhealthy  way finds its root in  our realization that  we dread the nothingness of nothing.  We  can’t imagine just  being  rather than  doing.  And therefore,  we look for  entertainment, we seek company, and if those fail,  we chase even higher  highs.We ignore the fact that  never facing this nothingness is  th e  same as never facing ourselves.  And  never facing ourselves  is why  we feel lonely and anxious  in spite of being so intimately connected to everything else around us.Fortunately, there is a solution.  The only way  to  avoid being ruined  by this fear  -  like any fear - is to  face  it.  It’s to  let the  boredom take you where it wants so you can deal with whatever it is that is really going on with your sense of self.  That’s when  you’ll hear yourself think, and that’s when you’ll  learn to engage  the parts of you that are masked by distraction.The beauty of this is that, once you cross that initial barrier, you realize that  being alone isn’t so bad.  Boredom can provide its own  stimulation.When you surround yourself with moments of solitude and  stillness, you become  intimately  familiar with your environment  in a way that forced stimulation doesn’t allow.  The world becomes richer, the  layers  start to peel back, and you see things for what they rea lly are, in all their wholeness, in all their  contradictions, and in all their unfamiliarity.You learn that there are other things you are capable of paying attention to than just what makes the most noise on the surface.  Just because a quiet room doesn’t scream  with excitement  like the idea of  immersing  yourself in a movie  or a TV show doesn’t mean that there isn’t depth to explore there.Sometimes,  the direction that this solitude leads you in can be unpleasant, especially when it comes to  introspection  - your thoughts and your feelings, your doubts and your hopes - but in the long-term, it’s far more pleasant than running away from it all without even realizing that you are.Embracing boredom  allows you to discover  novelty  in things you didn’t know were novel;  it’s like being an unconditioned child seeing the world for the first time.  It also  resolves  the majority of internal conflicts.The TakeawayThe more the world advances, the more stimulation it w ill provide as an  incentive  for us to get outside of our own mind to engage with it.While Pascal’s generalization that a lack of comfort with solitude is the root of all our problems may be an  exaggeration, it isn’t an entirely  unmerited  one.Everything that has done so much to connect us has simultaneously isolated us.  We are so busy being distracted that we are  forgetting to tend to ourselves, which is consequently making us feel more and more alone.Interestingly,  the main  culprit  isn’t our obsession with any particular worldly stimulation.  It’s  the fear of nothingness  -  our  addiction to a state of not-being-bored.  We have an instinctive  aversion  to simply  being.Without  realizing the value of solitude, we are overlooking the fact that,  once the fear of boredom is faced,  it can actually provide its own stimulation.  And  the only way  to  face it is to make time, whether every day or every week, to  just sit - with our thoughts, our feelings, with a m oment of stillness.The  oldest philosophical wisdom in the world has one piece of advice for us:  know yourself.  And there is a good reason why that is.Without  knowing ourselves, it’s almost impossible to find a healthy way to interact with the  world  around us.  Without taking  time to figure it out, we don’t have a foundation to build the rest of our lives on.Being alone and connecting inwardly  is a skill nobody ever teaches us.  That’s ironic because it’s more important than most of the ones they do.Solitude may not be the solution to everything, but it certainly is a start.Want to think and live smarter?  Zat Rana  publishes a free weekly newsletter for 30,000+ readers at  Design Luck.This  article  was originally published on  Design Luck.You might also enjoy… New neuroscience reveals 4 rituals that will make you happy Strangers know your social class in the first seven words you say, study finds 10 lessons from Benjamin Franklin’s daily schedule that will double your productivity The worst mistakes you can make in an interview, according to 12 CEOs 10 habits of mentally strong people