Maybe You’re Not an Island

Oct 4

Written By Kate Coffey-Bacon

There’s a particular kind of loneliness that comes from thinking you’re the only one.

The only one who doesn’t know.

The only one struggling with something everyone else seems to have figured out.

The only one questioning whether the way we’ve always done something still makes sense.

The only one standing in a room wondering if everyone else got a playbook you somehow missed.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how often we mistake not having found our people yet for being alone.

Those aren't the same thing.

Sometimes you’re not an island.

Sometimes you just haven't found the bridge yet.

And I think this shows up everywhere. In our careers. In leadership. In parenting. In friendship. In the things we're trying to build.

We tell ourselves a story based on the information we have available to us. Nobody else is talking about this, so maybe nobody else feels it. Nobody has built this, so maybe nobody needs it. Nobody has asked the question, so maybe I shouldn't either.

But what happens when you say it out loud?

What happens when you ask the question?

What happens when someone across the room looks at you and says, “Wait. You too?”

There is something incredibly powerful about that moment.

Not because someone solved the problem for you.

Because suddenly you know you don't have to solve it alone.

Maybe that’s one of the reasons community matters so much to me.

The right community doesn't simply give us answers. It gives us people willing to sit inside the questions with us.

People who challenge the way we think.

People who share what they've learned.

People who say the quiet thing out loud first.

People who remind us that we're not standing out there by ourselves.