I don’t know if this applies generally, but I’ve noticed it in myself and many of my friends in similar pursuits.
As an entrepreneur, an artist, a person pushing to create something, or maybe just as a person in general, the world can become a lonely place.
I remember finishing a conversation someone intimately close to me. Until then I felt that I was ‘understood’, but the conversation proved otherwise. I finished the conversation, and it was the first time I felt tears in two years.
I didn’t feel that people understood the reason why I was doing what I was doing. Everyone felt very far from me.
This is was completely self imposed. Consider the following when you’re thinking that —
1) You are not a special snowflake. There have been many people before you, and after you, that thought the same thing you did, and moved forward. These have been recorded for thousands of years in books that will prove to be invaluable to you. Find friends there.
2) People understand you, but they don’t know that they understand you. When you’re doing something scary, it’s natural for someone who loves you to advise you against it, to choose the ‘safer’ path. Take that as love, for that’s all that it is. It’s not worth arguing over. If it’s an elder who is advising you, understand that they took risks when they were in your position, but they don’t see it the same way looking back. Feel belonging in joining that tradition.
3) Feel belonging with your purpose. Even if people don’t understand why you’re doing something, feel belonging that you want to accomplish the same thing. To create happiness, to become a beter leader. If you’re doing something hard, the results are worthy.