Why Are We Afraid?

Why are you inviting another human being into a space you have not yet learnt to manage?

There is a strange discomfort most people experience when they are left alone with themselves with no phone, notifications or conversations to hide behind. Just silence, a room with their own thoughts. For many, that silence is unbearable. And in that discomfort lies one of the root causes of modern human problems.

We are not afraid of being alone. We are afraid of what shows up when there is nothing to distract us.

When the noise fades, unresolved emotions surface. Regrets. Longings. Guilt. Questions we have postponed. The mind begins to replay what we have avoided processing. So we reach for stimulation. We scroll. We call. We message. We attach ourselves to people, ideas, movements, relationships, and arguments, not because they are necessary, but because they keep us from sitting with ourselves.

This inability to be alone is why many people rush into relationships they are not ready for. And if you are honest with yourself, you have seen it or lived it. Silence feels heavy, so companionship becomes a coping mechanism. Attention becomes medicine. Emotional availability becomes a substitute for inner stability. We mistake connection for healing, even when we are leaking inside.

When you crave someone’s presence, is it love, or is it relief? When you reach for your phone in quiet moments, are you missing a person, or are you avoiding yourself? If that person were to disappear tomorrow, would your life still feel anchored, or would everything collapse at once?

Most relationships are not built on readiness. They are built on escape. Escape from loneliness, boredom, unresolved pain and the uncomfortable task of sitting with your own thoughts. And so we enter bonds hoping they will carry what we refused to process alone.

Can you sit in a room alone without reaching for distraction? Can you be with your thoughts without immediately needing someone to absorb them? If the answer is no, why are you inviting another human being into a space you have not yet learnt to manage?

Photo by Andrey Metelev on Unsplash

Attention feels good because it numbs. Someone asking about your day distracts you from asking harder questions about your direction. Someone being emotionally available gives you a sense of worth without requiring you to build one. But numbing is not healing. It only delays the reckoning.

It is also why some relationships feel intense very quickly and exhausting just as fast. Two people leaking try to seal each other. Two unfinished hearts lean until one collapses. And when the relationship ends, the pain feels unbearable, not because the love was deep, but because it was carrying too much weight it was never meant to hold.

You have to be honest. Are you choosing this person, or are you choosing the feeling of not being alone? Are you attracted to who they are or to how quiet they make your inner noise? If they stopped giving you attention, would you still recognise yourself?

Connection is beautiful when it comes from fullness. It is destructive when it comes from lack. Until you can sit quietly with yourself, without panic, without urgency, without reaching for someone to rescue you from your own mind, you will keep mistaking relief for love.

And love deserves better than that.

It is also why many people cannot repent sincerely. Many would rather flood their WhatsApp status with quotes about forgiveness than sit quietly before Allah. They would rather post “I hope everyone I have wronged forgives me” than make a call, send a thoughtful message, or write a proper apology to the person they actually hurt.

Why? Because silence is demanding. Silence asks questions you cannot dodge. Silence forces you to remember names, moments, tone, and impact. Silence brings back faces you would rather blur. It is easier to broadcast vague remorse than to confront specific responsibility.

When you say “may Allah forgive me”, have you actually stopped to ask what you are being forgiven for? Or are you hoping the phrase itself will wash things away without requiring courage? When you post repentance publicly, is it for Allah or for relief from guilt or just for vibes?

Tawbah requires stillness. It requires reflection. It requires sitting with Allah without performance, without an audience, and without distraction. It requires admitting the truth to yourself before you ever say it out loud. That is hard. Much harder than sharing a quote. Much harder than typing a general statement that costs you nothing.

True repentance forces you to slow down and face yourself honestly. It makes you ask. What did I do? Why did I do it? Who did it affect? What can I fix? What must I change? And what am I willing to give up so I do not return to this place again?

When silence is avoided, self-accountability disappears. People stay busy enough to never confront their own hearts. They replace repentance with noise. They replace humility with aesthetics. They replace repair with announcements. And then they wonder why nothing truly changes inside.

Allah does not need your public declarations. He wants your private honesty. He wants the moment where you sit alone, stripped of excuses, stripped of distraction, and say, “This is who I was. This is what I did. And I need Your help to be better.”

That moment happens in stillness.

The early scholars valued moments of seclusion not because they hated people, but because they understood the self. They knew that without time alone, the soul becomes reactive, not reflective. A reactive soul chases stimulation. A reflective soul chooses restraint.

Our inability to sit quietly is also why outrage spreads so easily. Silence leaves room for thought. Noise leaves room for reaction. A person who cannot sit with themselves will always look outward for something to fight, defend, consume, or desire. Inner chaos always seeks external expression. You heard something from an online friend about another online friend. Instead of you asking yourself deep questions, you decide to react since you have lost your mental cap.

Even our worship suffers because of this. Prayer becomes rushed. Dhikr becomes mechanical. We wake up as early as 6 AM to post “Don’t forget your morning adhkaar” when we should still be locked with our Qur’an, making dhikr, doing other acts of worship or just doing something beneficial that can make our mornings full of barakah as the prophet prayed for. Duʿāʾ becomes shallow because the heart has never learnt to be still long enough to feel anything deeply.

You wake up in the morning after sleeping by 12 am, and the first thing you do is grab your phone and scroll. Notifications first. Messages. Status updates. Someone else’s life before you even acknowledge your own. Yet the same you posted “Don’t forget to read Mulk” by 10 pm the previous night. This shows how easily we outsource our conscience while neglecting our own practice.

Ask yourself honestly. When was the last time you sat with the Qur’an without multitasking? When was the last time your dhikr was not rushed? When was the last time you spoke to Allah before speaking to the world? If faith is always announced but rarely lived in private, something is broken.

This is what constant stimulation does. It trains the mind to react before it reflects. It makes worship something we remind others of instead of something we submit to ourselves. It creates a version of religiosity that performs well online but struggles in silence.

Allah is not impressed by reminders you give others while neglecting your own heart. He is not moved by posts about spirituality if they are not followed by stillness, intention, and action. The soul is not nourished by broadcasting faith. It is nourished by practising it quietly.

Until you learn to delay the scroll and sit with Allah first, your reminders will sound loud but feel empty. And deep down, you know it.

Islam teaches intentional pauses. Night prayer. Fasting. Seclusion in the masjid. Moments where the world is put on hold so the soul can be addressed. These acts are not rituals alone. They are training. They teach the believer how to sit with themselves without collapsing.

A person who can sit alone without distraction does not need constant validation. They do not rush into attachment. They do not panic in silence. They do not need to fill every gap with noise. They become selective. Grounded. Less reactive. More present.

If humanity learnt to sit quietly in a room alone, many problems would lose their grip. Addiction would weaken. Impulsivity would slow. Relationships would be chosen more wisely. Faith would deepen. Peace would become possible.

Silence is not emptiness. It is where truth finally gets space to speak.