2. You’ll get smarter.
Alone time isn’t all just binge-watching your favorite shows in your elastic waistband pants. Many introverts spend their solitude reading books and articles or listening to podcasts. And the benefits of reading are huge, including helping keep your brain sharp (link is external), possibly staving off Alzheimer’s disease (link is external), and even making you more empathetic (link is external) (when you read fiction). If you’re not spending five hours a week learning something new via reading, you’re being irresponsible with your time, argues (link is external) entrepreneur and bestselling author Michael Simmons. Top business leaders like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Oprah spend five hours a week deliberately learning (link is external); they’re pretty busy people, so the moral of the story is that if they can find time to do it, so can you.
Two of these famous people, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet also have something else in common – playing Bridge. It may not be widely known that these two like to play a game of Bridge, but they do like to delve into this card game when they can, so perhaps there is a link to reading and card games that help people who love their solitude, strengthen their minds and get their ideas going! Maybe we all should pick up a book and start playing card games that we can read more about, and we could come up with the next best thing to Microsoft.