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Solitude and Connection: How Do We Find Our Balance?

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For better or worse, I have spent roughly a third of my life in my own company.
Of course, you’ll say we all do that. What I mean is only my own company. My days have been filled with me pursuing my goals and doing whatever I felt would be productive.

One might call that lonely. At times it feels that way, but by and large those moments are fleeting. The hours are consumed by activity—striving toward physical, creative, or career goals. It is nice, however, to have someone to talk with about what you’re doing. Those people are usually our closest friends or family members. Finding someone who truly fits that bill has always been difficult for me. My family maintained a great deal of privacy, and that is still our way.

It may sound like a contradiction for someone who has spent so much of his life in public roles—as an actor, entertainer, or public servant—but I have always tried to guide my steps with balance. Only a few people have ever brought me to the point of raising my voice, and they were almost always immediate family members or a long-term girlfriend who had become like family. Even then, I rarely initiated conflict. I never liked arguments; I saw them as a waste of energy that rarely helped accomplish the task at hand. Sometimes, though, the other person simply has a “mad on” and needs to get it out. In those moments you can either absorb it quietly or respond in kind.

As an actor I’ve learned that conflict lies at the heart of drama. It’s what keeps audiences glued to show after show and movie after movie. I know how to portray theatrical conflict convincingly—because I’m paid to do exactly that. In real life, however, my walk is smoother when I engage with others in a civil and logical manner.

According to my beliefs, we pass through this life only once. I would rather spend it making strides toward goals that benefit both myself and the world around me. I want to uplift others, to keep learning and growing, and to create artistic work that moves people. These things give me balance. Everyday tasks can still tilt me off center—they often feel tedious—but they are necessary steps toward the larger goals.

Is life better without solitude? I would say those blessed with a strong family are tremendously fortunate, even when that blessing brings intense moments of fellowship (and friction).

Would I trade what I have for it? There are days I miss the large, noisy family that once surrounded me. As time passes and more of us are gone than remain, the daily walk grows a bit harder. The void is filled with friends, but even those relationships can thin with the years.

My advice is simple: start early. Build a strong immediate family that cares for one another. Strengthen ties to blood relatives and keep them close. Cultivate lasting friendships—remember that to have a friend, you must be one. Even those of us who walk with God as our constant companion benefit from having people we can reach out and touch. They are not avatars on social media. They are flesh-and-blood souls who share the journey.

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I wonder where does the time go?

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Each day I find myself rising and trying to find my way through a long list of tasks that need my attention. Sometimes I wonder why the list does not shorten, but it continues to remain steady. The list of course contains many of the same ones you have on yours—washing, cleaning, mowing, trimming, and a myriad of daily tasks: cooking, shopping, errands and other routines. Those are always on the list.
Then I decide to add to the list constantly for my career—more writing, more music, more personal appearances. With each choice the list grows. Volunteering and public service makes the list also, adding additional hours and tasks to be done.
I was talking with someone this week, sharing how since April I have been trying to get a chance to plow my garden spot and get something planted, but between the to-do list and the rain, it’s just not come to pass.
That’s what got me wondering: Where does the time go?
It’s a question we all mutter when weeks, months or even years suddenly slip away unnoticed—a rhetorical sigh that captures surprise, nostalgia and a touch of regret about how fast life moves. It’s not asking for a literal answer (time doesn’t “go” anywhere physical); it’s an emotional outburst about the fleeting nature of our days, a modern cousin to the ancient Latin tempus fugit—“time flees.”
Science offers some comfort for why it feels this way. As we age, each year becomes a smaller slice of our total life so far. A year that felt endless to a five-year-old (20 percent of everything they’d ever known) is only two percent by age fifty. That’s the proportional theory of time perception, first laid out by philosopher Paul Janet in 1897. On top of that, our brains collect fewer fresh “novel frames”—distinct memories—once routines set in. The same commute, the same chores, the same deadlines blur together, so entire seasons vanish in hindsight. Even our mental “frame rate” slows; we simply take in fewer snapshots per second, making days race by like a video played at half speed.
I know that each day I aim at completing a number of tasks before I turn around and find it’s time to hit the hay—and then, in eight hours, I start again. That old idiom itself carries a quiet echo of simpler times. “Hit the hay” dates back to the early 19th century, when many mattresses were literally sacks stuffed with hay or straw. “Hitting the hay” meant flopping down onto that scratchy, farm-style bed at the end of a long day—the same humble origin behind its cousin phrase, “hit the sack.”
So here we are, lists unchanged, garden still waiting, another sunrise already on the horizon. The real wonder isn’t that time vanishes; it’s how little of it we notice while we’re living it. Maybe the question isn’t “Where does the time go?” but what we choose to do with the small, steady portion that’s still right here in front of us.
Find more of Randall’s writings in his books at the Store.