The Myth of Self-Sufficiency: Why We Can’t Live Without Connection

Self-sufficiency is a myth sold as strength. In truth, we are wired for connection, and loneliness is the cost of forgetting it.

Loneliness is a peculiar kind of suffering. It is not simply the absence of people, but the absence of being seen. We can be surrounded by people—colleagues, family, a lover—and still ache with the hollow sense of invisibility. This paradox of connection without belonging is perhaps the defining wound of our age. The attempted quest for an antidote to loneliness has sought online, which has inevitably served to cause a further disconnection and a deeper loneliness, and though it has been a great window for connection in certain circumstances, overall, it has painted the picture of the type of crisis of loneliness we are truly in. 

Science shows how costly this really is. A 2023, meta-analysis review of more than two million people found that loneliness increases the risk of dying early by around 14%, and social isolation by nearly a third. Disconnection, in public health terms, is as dangerous as obesity or inactivity. For most of us we wouldn’t be shocked by this, that’s because we have felt the painful weight of being alone, not being seen and the fear of that being what the price might be should one live in a state of inaction. 

We live in a time where contact is abundant but communion is scarce. Messages flicker endlessly on screens, likes are tallied, notifications buzz. Yet when silence settles, many of us feel more estranged than ever. We cling to devices for reassurance that we exist and that there are others out there. What is missing is not communication but recognition: the sense that someone has not only heard your words but has understood your inner life, even for a moment. There is a beautiful moment when you meet a friend for a coffee, or catch yourself with a lover in an intimate moment, and the truth of the conversation bares all, stripped back, devices away, eyes locked, and the genuine reverence of humanity is seen in its fullest beauty. These momoents of connection are yearned for. Even our biology feels the absence of connection. Lonely people are far more likely to sleep poorly, with older adults who feel lonely 75% more likely to report restless nights. Connection doesn’t just steady the heart, it steadies the nervous system itself.

As a psychotherapist, I see how deeply this fracture runs. My consulting room is not only a place for easing trauma or untangling anxieties. It is a rehearsal space for belonging, for mending connection to the Self so one can extend it to another. In therapy, two people attempt the rare act of dropping pretence. Masks are loosened, shame is risked, and truth takes shape in language. What makes this encounter radical is not its grand solutions but its simplicity: I am with you, and you matter.

But therapy is only one thread. The larger question is how we weave belonging back into ordinary life. The first step is recognising that loneliness is not an individual weakness but a social condition. Our culture prizes self-sufficiency, but independence is not the same as wholeness. Our nervous systems are wired for co-regulation. Our sense of self is sculpted in the gaze of others. To admit loneliness is not to confess failure, it is to acknowledge our humanity.

We long for intimacy yet recoil from vulnerability. We stumble through small talk, hiding behind anecdotes, jokes, or polite avoidance. What if we treated awkwardness not as a flaw but as the threshold to connection?

You don’t have to be perfectly polished to find connection or to belong. We must risk presenting out imperfections. To say, “I don’t know,” “I’m afraid,” or “I need you” may feel perilous, yet these are the very words that draw us into genuine closeness. Connection requires descent: a willingness to step off the stage of performance and into the underworld of honesty.

The epidemic of loneliness will not be solved by more apps or faster messaging. What we require are spaces of encounter. Dinners where phones are surrendered. Friendships that prioritise depth over convenience. Communities where silence and grief can be held without embarrassment. Most importantly, we must learn to belong to ourselves. If loneliness is the ache of invisibility, then self-belonging begins with daring to witness our own complexity.

Many of us flee from our inner lives, numbing with distraction or perfectionism, and we then start to believe that we cannot connect and we do not belong. But when we sit with our contradictions—the protective parts, the wounded parts, the desiring and fearful parts—we discover that wholeness is not the absence of fracture but the embrace of it. From this foundation, we can meet others not as fragmented actors but as becoming selves, capable of presence.

We are creatures of longing. Yet within that longing lies a possibility: through the courage of honesty, the acceptance of imperfections, and the cultivation of genuine presence, we can begin to reimagine what it means to belong, and so we will connect.