We have optimized our lives for independence, only to realize our biology is begging for the opposite. Poets and scientists agree: we were never meant to be a solo act.

We are all just walking each other home.

There is a line by the poet John Donne that we have all heard a thousand times, usually muttered at funerals or printed on inspirational posters. He wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

We nod at this. We agree with it philosophically. But if you look at how we actually live our modern lives, it’s clear we don’t believe it at all.

We live in the age of the self-made human. We worship the outlier, the solopreneur, the lone wolf. We view dependency as a weakness and emotional autonomy as the ultimate badge of maturity. We have constructed our lives as fortresses of efficiency, where we can order food, work, exercise, and be entertained without ever having to look another human being in the eye.

I know this fortress well because I spent years building one.

The Year I Optimized Myself Into Isolation

It was a Tuesday in March when I realized I hadn’t spoken to another human being—really spoken—in eleven days.

I had worked from home. Ordered groceries through an app. Texted instead of called. Declined three dinner invitations because I was “behind on a project.” I told myself I was being productive. Focused. Professional.

Then my sister texted me a photo of our parents at a family gathering I’d forgotten was happening. Everyone was there. The table was full. And I was sitting alone in my apartment eating reheated pasta, responding to the photo with a thumbs-up emoji.

That’s when it hit me: I had become extraordinarily efficient at being alone.

For a long time, I believed that needing others was a crack in the armor. I thought that if I could just optimize my routine enough—if I could be successful enough—I wouldn’t need anyone else to regulate my emotional state. It took a season of profound burnout to realize that the armor wasn’t keeping me safe. It was keeping me suffocated.

The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus warned us about this long before smartphones were invented. He said, “To eat and drink without a friend is to devour like the lion and the wolf.”

He understood something we have forgotten: We are not machines designed for output. We are creatures designed for resonance.

And when we try to live like islands, we don’t just become lonely. We begin to wither.

The Open Loop of the Nervous System

It is easy to dismiss the need for relationships as “soft”—something for poets and romantics, but not for serious, successful people. But the science suggests that connection is as vital as oxygen.

In their groundbreaking book A General Theory of Love, researchers offer a concept that challenges our entire view of independence. They propose that our nervous systems are not self-contained units. We are not closed loops.

Instead, we are “open loops.”

The anatomy of connection: deeply embedded between our survival instincts (Reptilian Brain) and our logic (Neocortex) sits the Limbic System—the emotional center that resonates with others.

This means that our biological stability depends on the presence of others. Psychologists call this “co-regulation.” The biological reality is that we cannot self-soothe as effectively in isolation as we can in the presence of a safe other.

Think of the last time you sat across from someone you trust and felt your shoulders drop. That wasn’t willpower. That wasn’t a decision you made. That was your nervous system recognizing safety and finally exhaling.

When we are held by someone we trust, our blood pressure lowers. When we are listened to, our heart rate regulates. We physically act as pacemakers for one another.

When we deny this—when we insist on “going it alone”—we are fighting millions of years of evolutionary architecture. We are forcing our bodies to live in a state of hyper-vigilance, constantly scanning for threats because no one is watching our backs.

The Currency of Attention

If we know that relationship matters—if we know, as the 80-year Harvard Study proved, that “good relationships keep us happier and healthier, period”—then why is it so hard to maintain them?

The answer lies in where we put our attention.

We often think of love as a grand, sweeping emotion, the kind of thing reserved for wedding vows or dramatic reunions. But the French philosopher Simone Weil offered a much quieter, more demanding definition: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.”

Relationships are not built on grand gestures. They are built on the humble, daily act of paying attention.

It’s the decision to put the phone face down on the table. It’s the choice to ask a second question rather than offer advice. It’s the willingness to linger in the parking lot for ten minutes after the event is over, to see how someone is truly doing.

Renowned researcher Dr. John Gottman calls these moments “bids for connection.” Every day, the people around us cast out tiny, invisible lines. A sigh. A laugh. A shared observation. When we turn toward these moments, we are weaving the fabric of intimacy. When we turn away, we are unraveling it.

We cannot make people feel seen if we are too busy looking at our own reflections.

The Courage to Be Seen

There is a reason we resist this deep connection, of course.

It is terrifying.

To be truly connected, you must be truly known. And to be known is to risk rejection. It is safer to be “busy.” It is safer to be “successful.” It is safer to present a polished avatar to the world than to let someone see the messy, unedited reality of who you are.

But the fears run deeper than we admit.

We fear being a burden. We’ve all seen the memes celebrating independence, the cultural valorization of “not needing anyone.” So we stay silent about our struggles, convincing ourselves that asking for support would be imposing, that our pain isn’t significant enough to warrant someone else’s time.

We fear appearing needy. There’s a particular shame that comes with admitting you miss someone, that you wish they’d call more, that you need more than you’re getting. We’ve been taught that emotional self-sufficiency is maturity, so we perform contentment we don’t feel.

But perhaps the deepest fear is this: What if we reach out and discover we’re not as important to them as they are to us? What if we break the silence and they don’t text back? What if we’re more alone than we thought?

So we wait. We wait for them to reach out first. We wait for proof that we matter before we risk the vulnerability of showing we care.

Brené Brown, who has spent her career studying the anatomy of connection, puts it starkly: “Vulnerability is the first thing I look for in you and the last thing I’m willing to show you in me.”

We are all waiting for someone else to drop the armor first. We are waiting for the other person to reach out, to apologize, to be awkward, to say “I miss you.”

But safety is a poor substitute for life.

But You’ve Built a Good Life Alone, Haven’t You?

You might be thinking, “But I AM fine alone. I’ve built a good life.”

And I believe you. You’re probably functional, maybe even successful. You pay your bills. You maintain your routines. You’ve learned to manage anxiety with meditation apps and regulate your mood with exercise. You’re independent in all the ways our culture celebrates.

But here’s the question worth asking: Are you thriving, or are you just surviving with exceptional skill?

There’s a crucial difference between healthy independence and desperate self-sufficiency. One is a choice made from abundance. The other is a defense mechanism made from fear.

Healthy independence says: “I can handle things on my own, but I don’t have to.”

Desperate self-sufficiency says: “I must handle everything on my own because needing others isn’t safe.”

The fortress feels like strength until you realize you’ve locked yourself inside.

Warning Signs You’ve Crossed the Line

How do you know when you’ve moved from healthy autonomy into harmful isolation? Here are the red flags:

You feel relief when plans get cancelled rather than disappointment.

You’ve gone more than a week without a meaningful conversation—the kind where you say something true about how you’re actually doing.

You work through lunch daily, not because you’re behind, but because you have no one to eat with.

You can’t remember the last time you asked someone for help with something you couldn’t handle alone.

You’ve stopped sharing good news because you’ve internalized that no one really cares.

You feel a low-grade anxiety that never quite goes away, even when everything is “fine.”

These aren’t signs of introversion or independence. They’re signs that your nervous system is running on empty, trying to self-regulate in a body that was never designed to do it alone.

Walking Each Other Home

In the end, our careers will come to an end. Our accolades will gather dust. The efficiency we prized so highly will be forgotten. What will remain is the quality of the hands we held.

There is a profound quote by the spiritual teacher Ram Dass that cuts through all the noise of our modern striving: “We are all just walking each other home.”

That is it.

That is everything.

The whole assignment.

We are here to make the journey a little less frightening for one another. To bear witness to each other’s lives. To remind each other that, despite the darkness, we are not alone.

So, let us challenge the myth of the island. Let us defy the urge to retreat into our fortresses.

Your Four-Week Practice

Change doesn’t happen all at once. It happens in small, brave increments. Here’s a graduated approach to rebuilding connection:

Week 1: Notice
Each day, simply notice one bid for connection. The coworker who lingers by your desk. The friend who sends a random meme. The family member who asks how you’re doing. Don’t respond differently yet. Just notice.

Week 2: Respond
Choose one bid for connection each day that you’d normally ignore or minimize. Respond to it. Stay an extra five minutes. Send more than “lol” in response to the meme. Answer “how are you” with something true.

Week 3: Initiate
Make one small reach-out each week. Not a big gesture—just a genuine one. “That thing you said last week has been on my mind.” “Saw this and thought of you.” “Want to grab coffee?”

Week 4: The Six-Month Text
Scroll to the bottom of your text messages—to the person you haven’t spoken to in six months or more. Someone who mattered. Someone you miss. Send them a simple text: “Thinking of you. No need to reply, just wanted to say hi.”

Watch what happens to your nervous system the moment you hit send. Watch how it softens. How it exhales when it finds its tribe.

The Truth We Don’t Say Out Loud

Because here’s the truth we don’t say out loud: the fortress you built to keep pain out is also keeping life out.

Every brick you laid to protect yourself from rejection is also blocking love. Every wall you constructed to avoid disappointment is also preventing joy. Every moat you dug to maintain independence is also creating the very loneliness you feared most.

And you can tear it down. Not all at once. Not in some dramatic gesture.

You can tear it down starting with one text, one lunch, one honest conversation where you admit that you’re tired of being an island.

The people who love you are waiting on the other side. Not waiting for you to be perfect. Not waiting for you to have it all figured out.

Just waiting for you to let them in.

It is time to let ourselves breathe.