Have you ever felt like you’re at the front of the ship, the whole world before you, unexplored territory – what a thrill – but you’re all alone?

No one next to you. You have the other-worldly drive pushing you forward, but you have to go it alone. No connection. Where is the connection? But it’s your journey. No one can do it for you. So you have to do it alone.​

What is aloneness like?​

It’s sad. Scary. Uncertain. No feedback. Can you hear me, Major Tom? That fear, of being completely unmoored, of cutting yourself off from connection, from anyone who’ll understand you. What if you just float away? Then what will become of you? You’ll be unmoored AND not have achieved anything. The ultimate loss. Nothingness.​

You’re only going on this journey because you believe there’s something to find. Something to bring back for everyone else. A strange new fruit for the children that’s never been tasted before.​

What will it be like to come back, your sack full of riches? True, you’ll have been places they’ll never understand, seen things they’ll never imagine – but your purpose was gifts. Your purpose was nourishment. You did it for love.​

Your loneliness and aloneness was the price of your ticket out there. It was a heavy price, but you did it for love.​

And your connection comes through the gifts you bring back for others. They’ll never be you and you’ll never be them. The connection comes from the space you build in between.​

Your loneliness and your aloneness will always be your price, if this is the journey you choose to make, over and over throughout your life, in the name of love.​

But, bound to purpose, it is the hero’s badge that you wear proudly, your hardest offering that you undertake gladly, because the vision across the horizon is just so sparklingly clear.​

You can do this and you want to do this. Your loneliness and aloneness is your key to connection.​

I’m in a different boat, but we’re on the same sea.​