Notes on: Loneliness and Risk

'Loneliness and Risk' is taken from the course, 'Managing Happiness,' by Arthur Brooks on edX.org.

A lot of people have a fear of being rejected.

There are less people in love in their 20s nowadays as there were back in the 1970s. There is a neurological tendency to be risk averse, and so people are more pulled back.

Fighting the Fear

People who actively push back against the fear and seek out connections independent of rejection thrive more in their relationships.

Fear is an expansion of your nervous system, and it's ability to hold a sensation. When you have enough sensory expansion, a rejection doesn't have the same impact.

Communities provide people with safety nets. We are less scared about being rejected by external people when we have a community we can trust to come back to. Te community provides intimacy and safety.

Suggestions for Lonely People

Loneliness has deep connections with us neurophysiologically. Our decline in social risk taking has led to developing more neurotic mirror neurons that inhibit our ability to make connections with others.

In order to combat this, we need to put ourselves out there. We need to take some risks and get better at making these connections. The good news is, the more you practise it, the better you'll get at it because your mirror neurons will become more sensitive. It will become more satisfying to you the more you practise it.