Alone Is Definitely Not The Best Company

I spent more than two days wondering what to do as the ideal immersion exercise. Most of the ideas we had been given to kick start our thought stream, were ideas I had already tried. So I tried to think of things which I had never done before and things I would find very hard to do. On the top of my list was spending an hour with a snake and trying to stomach my insane phobia of them, but it was hard to organise one so I settled for my second greatest fear, staying indoors and being alone.

 I am one of those people who even sleeps in the rooms of other friends in an attempt to avoid being alone, so spending 24 hours by myself was beyond scary. I thought it would be fun to see how long I'd last though.

Prior to the exercise, I was afraid and I was convinced that my friends would break into my room and ruin everything, so I decided not to tell them about it. In preparation for the exercise, I bought 3 packets of noodles, some biscuits and I convinced a friend to take lecture notes for me. I also switched off my phone. At about 8am on a Monday morning, everything came together.

I woke up, brushed my teeth and sat in bed. After about 10 minutes I went back to sleep and woke up an hour later. I then did some reading for Law, thereafter I researched for my English paragraph and then I got hungry.

I prepared some noodles and 3 packets later I started missing dining hall food. After the noodles I continued working and I somehow found myself asleep. I was startled into an awake state by my friends' bashing on my window. Thinking they would see me, I hid under the bed. After peeking through the curtain and saying my name a few times, they gave up. Later on, however, they were knocking on my door. With my phone switched off and my laptop almost useless now that I could not use it to contact other people, I truly felt very alone. I managed to clean my room, pray and think about life.

One of the greatest challenges I faced was keeping my bladder tame and sitting for so long without showering. I still cannot believe that I made it. When I reached the 19 hour mark, I decided that enough is enough and I won't make it to 24 hours. I unlocked my door and went to the bathroom where I showered and used the bathroom as many times and in as many ways as I wanted to.

Looking back at the experience, I am proud of myself for having made it through the 19 hours which I made it through. Needless to say, I will never do it again. I have learnt to value my friends and being outdoors a lot more.

My own company can really be prison. So I repeat, NEVER AGAIN!