If you can’t enjoy an hour with yourself, a crowd won’t fix it.

A crowd can cover restlessness, and it does not treat it, since the quiet comes back when everybody leaves. If being alone for an hour feels unbearable, filling the calendar is a way of staying ahead of that rather than resolving it. This is not a character flaw, and being comfortable alone is a learned thing that most people learn late. The hour is where the learning happens.

Give yourself one hour this week with no company and nothing playing. Expect it to feel odd for the first ten minutes. Do it a few times and you will notice you stop checking how long is left.