Loneliness and The Readers' Digest.

All by myself in the morning
All by myself in the night

I sit alone with a table and a chair
So unhappy there
Playing solitaire

All by myself I get lonely
Watching the clock on the shelf

I'd love to rest my weary head on somebody's shoulder
I hate to grow older
All by myself 

A great song, certainly. But it has a sad message. 

 

Research tells us that loneliness and social isolation can increase mortality by 26-32%. That is a higher rate than obesity or smoking. And it is so unnecessary.

Of course, some people can live all alone, but they never feel sad and blue, because being Alone and being Lonely are not the same thing. Some people may live alone, but they have interests outside of themselves and lead happy, varied, even exciting lives. Other people can be lonely in a crowd. They feel all alone, all the time, with no one else to tell their troubles to. This sort of loneliness can lead to depression.

On TV each night, we watch sad and depressing dramas of life gone terribly wrong. At the end of the show, up on the screen comes a message saying that if you, or someone you know, is depressed or suicidal, call Lifeline or Beyond Blue.

They are both wonderful organisations. However, I would also suggest that a cure for loneliness is take out a subscription to Readers’ Digest. Once you subscribe to Readers’ Digest you will have a friend for life.

Apart from getting an interesting magazine to read each month, you will also be invited to participate in schemes that could make you hugely rich or send you on an all expenses paid holidays to exotic lands.

Not only that, even if you discontinue your subscription to Readers’ Digest, you will become more of a friend to them than ever. I subscribed to Readers’ Digest for over twenty years. About ten years ago I did not renew my subscription. However, they still continued to send me cheery letters inviting me, at no cost, to enter their in house raffles to win vast sums of money or go on cruises to far away places with strange sounding names.

Well, times change.These days, those letters have ceased. Instead, I now regularly get colourful e-mails telling me what a wonderful person I am and inviting me to win at least $270 000 by simply entering the latest Readers’ Digest competition. It could be  a lot more if I bought certain products. So far I have resisted the temptation. 

They include glamorous photographs of previous winners receiving their prizes at glittering events in Sydney's plushest hotels. A few weeks after I enter, Readers' Digest contacts me again to ask how I would like to travel to Sydney if I win the First Prize. Do I want to be met at the airport with a limousine and a liveried chaffeur? Would I like a conducted tour of Sydney with $5000 spending money?

They tell me that I am getting this chance because I am valued by Readers' Digest and that I have come through several screening processes to be the only person living in Ocean Reef to be given this fabulous chance to wealth and riches untold.

How can anyone remain all alone and blue when one of the world’s biggest companies takes such an intense personal interest in them?