But there may be times where you feel alone and depressed — just about everyone has spells like that, or is strong enough to admit it. It’s not easy to talk about, but loneliness, feeling unwanted, and even self-hate from time to time is extremely common. If your hermiting drags on for weeks, you’ll want the help of healthcare experts, but if it’s not so severe and happens on occasion, here’s some vibrant and practical suggestions for you:

　　Gather a “praise pile”

　　Ideally, you’ll want to do this before you’re in a downer — it serves as a life preserver when you’re in the “eye of the storm”.

　　Compile the love you’ve felt: a handwritten note from your Mom, a photo of you and your best buds at the lake together, and awards you’ve won. They don’t have to be recent — recognition spans your whole life. And they don’t have to be physical, either; I’ve used the Firefox ScrapBook add-on to do what its offline analogue does: clip and save kind words from others. Like my lifehack comments. ;)

　　So when I feel like I’m not being cared about, I take a quick look at the “praise pile”, and put what’s happening in perspective: others have cared about me before, and they will again. And perhaps most importantly, by realizing this, I care about myself. This is a process and never happens immediately. One can’t instantly “snap out of it”. It “takes time”, as the trite-but-true saying goes. But oh, how true it is.

　　According to How to get Rich, Donald Trump keeps a box of mementos much as what I’ve described. He sure seems like he loves himself a lot.

　　Give up on something worth dropping

　　Burdens are bedfellows with loneliness. Some people who’d like to have more of a social life are crushed by the rat race, or their own compounded fears which hold them back. By dropping what I often call “slop” (waste unnecessary to your enjoyment of life), it frees you to take on more meaningful things (keep reading!). Less worry means more freedom to self-explore and pursue interests.

　　Why does this sound so obvious? Because it is. But it may only be during a time of emotional inner turbulence that you can summon the strength to unchain yourself.

　　Don’t overthink — that makes it worse. If you watched the recent Olympics in Beijing, notice how many top athletes (gymnasts in particular) have such a fluid momentum that you might wonder if they’re thinking consciously at all. As any great performer knows, and as controversial as “muscle memory” may be, repeated practice leads to what’s dubbed “second nature”, or a threshold surpassed in which analyzing evolves to intuition based on past experiences.

　　When you find yourself especially stressed or anxious, those are otherwise-unpleasant moments you can use to your advantage. Especially if you’re crying and in a lot of anguish, determine in a flash what’s worth keeping, and visualize it like this: you are a burning building. If you could rush into yourself and save only a handful of things to take to a new you, what will they be?

　　Write them down, and set the list aside until you feel more rational. Then look at it again, and join your thoughts of the now with what you had felt then. This can be a potent truth-revealing exercise and puts you on the right track.

　　Find something new worth fighting for

　　By “fight”, I refer not to violence. Rather, I speak of a cause you can champion and stand up for. The “fight” here is versus adversity. Your cause may be a charity that improves others’ lives, or even a campaign to save a TV show. Notice how these purposes require others to get involved — they’re inherently social, and even though you may not think about so much about that (and shouldn’t), they’ll lead to you interacting with others, feeling less lonely.

　　Being recognized as a maverick and a leader isn’t a deliberate process you need to set up like a goal. Rather, the goals here are more about the innate satisfaction and Happiness you’ll feel.

　　A couple examples from my experiences: when I felt snobs were scaring away novices from enjoying electronic music, I spoke up against them, serving as a pillar of light for new fans. I wrote reviews and guides, increasing techno music’s accessibility. The adulation felt awesome. And more recently in a professional capacity, I’ve connected knowledge resources for the virtual world of Second life, helping our community to have happier experiences. I began as a fan, and came to love what I do (and myself) so much that I ended up working for the company.

　　Growth is like that — you may not know where you’ll precisely end up, but you should always be passionate about growth and know where you want to head. Even if it’s not a single direction, mixing disciplines and skillsets will create a unique fusion that no one else has, and that’s a strong reason to love your uniqueness.

　　Celebrate your similarities AND differences

　　Too many people make the mistake of singling out what’s common or how they’re different. This is defective, too-filtered thinking, because success is neither wholly familiar or alien: it’s both. All of us are humans and subject to emotions. By consequence, all of us have problems — but some of us deal with them more effectively than others. We are all variations on a common theme.

　　If you’re concerned about body image, it’s good for all humans to be healthy. But it’s unachievable to duplicate someone else’s figure — Jocelyn Wildenstein taught us that with her approximation of a cat. After perusing existing possibilities, you need to do what’s right for you (including Jocelyn — if she’s happy, that’s what matters) and being inspired by someone isn’t the same as cloning them: it’s taking your hero’s “recipe” and improvising a new mix with it.