Being a Lone Wolf is Ruining Your Life

I remember when I first discovered motivational videos on YouTube.

I was 16 years old and still in school.

When you’re 15, you’re still being bossed around by your mum, but when you’re 16 you suddenly want to conquer the world and tell your mum “actually no, I don’t have to do what you tell me, I’m an adult now. What’s for dinner by the way?”.

At 16, watching videos about hustle, grind and outperforming the competition excited my ego like a milkman excites an old lady.

4 videos in, I suddenly thought it would be a great idea to wake up at 5am, run to the local park and do a workout before school. Just like these videos suggested.

The first day went great. Beaming full of energy I arrived at school and thought: “ha! You tired cretins I’ve been awake since 5 grinding my arse off”.

The second day of this routine came around and I thought, hm, after the workout I felt pretty bored. Today I’m going to go for a walk and listen to a motivational video. In fact I’ll download it before I go in case the internet cuts off.

Scrolling scrolling scrolling, ah! Video titled, for all the lone wolfs grinding. Perfect, that fits the description.

So I woke up, worked out and went for a walk whilst listening to this 4 minute video about how the wolf at the bottom of the hill is always hungrier than the wolf at the top of the hill. Awesome message I thought, I’m hungry. I don’t know what for, I’d love to go back to bed right now, no, Lewis that’s not the point, we’re hustling. FIFA?

Day 3 of the routine came around. Same again? Yes. I woke up, and my first thought; this is pretty hard. In fact, I’m not actually hustling for anything. I’m doing my a levels for gods sake. Why do I have to wake up at 5am? Who is this competition they keep talking about?

I’d love to play fifa right now.

After 3 days I stopped the routine and eventually reclaimed my lost sleep. A few days later, preparing for our end of year exams, I had a PE class. I loved PE, that’s something I could truly hustle on.

The teacher announced we had a project to work on; probably about high altitude training or something, but to my shock, there was one last piece of information she’d missed… It was a group project.

We had to pair up, discuss ideas and then complete the project… gulp… together.

You have to understand, at this point in my life, all I’d been absorbing is messages about the solo grind. Shunning other people to focus on myself.

But I couldn’t ask the teacher to work alone. So I paired up with my best friend, Jack.

What you need to understand about Jack is that I’ve known him since I was 10. And no matter what the situation, I know he’ll always hold me accountable.

Anyway, we sat together and began working. I quickly realised I could get this project done a lot quicker if I just knuckled down for the hour and worked on it myself. Jack knows how much I love PE, he’ll understand right? Anyway, he’s an extrovert, he can go and chat up Leoni while I’m solo wolf hustling.

We discussed ideas quickly, he turned to talk to someone else and I thought ha! My chance, I’ll start progressing. If he asks questions I’ll be blunt, and he’ll get the message.

10 minutes go by and Jack can see I’ve taken the lead. Too much. I’m starting to ignore his input. This was meant to be a group project and I’ve literally made it a solo man mission.

20 minutes go by and I’m stuck. My momentum has burned out but I can’t ask for help, that would show I’m not the best in the class at the subject I love the most.

Jack, sat silently by my side the whole time, staring at me lazer focused on this task at hand, he’s already asked multiple times if he can help and I’ve ignored him, but now he can actually see I’m stuck.

Little did I know that what Jack would say to me next in anger would change my life, forever.

Jack grabs me by the shoulder, turns my head so we’ve locked eyes in death staring brotherly eye contact, and he says in a fed up yet light hearted compassionate voice: “Lewis. Help me help you.”

And within 5 seconds I realised, damn, I can do a lot alone but I can’t get very far without others. I apologised, we laughed and completed the rest of the project together.

‍

Distillation:

The truth is, I’ve always been a lone wolf.

And most of the time, I like it that way.

Without relying on others I know exactly what to expect and if something needs doing I’ll do it myself.

I like seeing other people who are lone wolves as well. It makes me think “yeah, we do need to be alone to get things done”.

To be brutally honest, sometimes I fear asking others for help or admitting that I need others in my life, friends, family, loved ones, because people can always let you down, screw you over or just simply fail to follow through on their promises.

And in the end, we all die. If grief is the price we pay for love, why not short circuit the system and never love at all so you don’t have to feel any grief when this person dies or the relationship ends.

Save the tears and heartbreak, I can put that energy into my work.

It can also feel like weakness to admit you need other people. You know what? I don’t need anyone, I’m strong enough alone. I know myself well enough to handle my own issues. In fact, no one understands me like I understand myself.

For anyone who says this you’ve never had a friend look you in the eyes and reveal an ego shattering truth about your own behaviour that you’ve never noticed before. And if this friend is truly skilled in the art of friendship, they’ll make you laugh whilst doing so.

There are numerous examples in our culture of celebrities shunning the world of people to be great, incredible, top performers at what they do.

The artist Marina Abramovic gave a controversial interview in 2016 explaining why she chose to stay single and not have children. Doing so would have been a catastrophe for her art, she explained. We only have limited energy after all, and she would’ve had to divide it.

The writer Philip Roth spoke with pride about how he lives alone and is committed to nothing but his own needs. He once told an interviewer that his lifestyle means he can always be on call for work. He’s like a doctor in the emergency room. And he’s the emergency.

In fact there’s a whole online movement called “men going their own way” and now more women are shunning having a family so they can fully focus on their career.

How sad. And what nonsense.

You see, from my experience, the problem with being a lone wolf isn’t that you’re working too hard or your self development practices are too extreme. The problem is when you convince yourself that other people are hindrances. Whether that be friendships, family, a romantic partner or people in general.

The lone wolf mindset is ego and fear rolled into one. Fear of being let down and the ego driven desire to always be leading the mission - your vision - and to not have it tainted or interrupted by others.

Perhaps you resonate with this video all too well. Maybe you’re always taking on solo missions. Shunning opportunities to socialise. Dismissive when talking to others. Impatient when they’re speaking because you know best.

If you do this for a long enough period of time, I can tell you, people will stop bothering you. You’ll get the solitary life you think you want. But as Jack and I can assure you, it’s not what you want.

The idea that you need to shut yourself away from everyone to achieve great heights or enlightenment is missing the point. Who will be around to care that you did so?

One of the greatest authors to have lived, Fyodor Dostoyevsky described his wife Anna as a rock on which he could lean and rest, a wall that would not let him fall and protected him from the cold. J Cole the rapper said that the best thing he’s ever done as a musician was become a husband and a father. Marie Curie was cynical about love, until she met Pierre, whom she married and won a Nobel prize with. For me, I would be nothing without my tribe and the friends and family which make it.

Anyone can be famous, as Ryan Holiday says, but only you can be Dad, Mum, brother or soul mate to the people in your life.

Relationships are tough. Perhaps the toughest thing we face in life. No one says they’re easy. And the word relationship can be spelled many ways:

‍

T-I-M-E.

L-O-V-E.

S-A-C-R-I-F-I-C-E.

L-O-Y-A-L-T-Y.

C-O-M-M-I-T-M-E-N-T.

V-U-L-N-E-R-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

M-A-D-N-E-S-S.

But the word relationship is always punctuated by is R-E-W-A-R-D.

To shun relationships because it means your house will be quieter and no one will be waiting for you at the dinner table so you can work longer. Yes it’ll be more quiet but the silence will be hollow. Empty.

The excitement of two people meeting for the first time, the stillness of a couple on a porch swing, a hug, a final letter, a memory, a phone call. The joy of teaching, of learning, of being together and belonging.  

Don’t forget that bettering ourselves requires other people. In fact, it is for other people.

“Splendid chambers mean nothing when void of friendly company.”

• Alexander Pushkin