Welcome to the simple Sophisticate Podcast, where intelligent living is paired with signature style.

I'm your host, Shannon Ables.

And whether you're listening on your commute, exercising, working in the garden, or sitting down with a hot cup of tea or a

cafe ole, thank you for tuning in. Let's get started. Well, Welcome to the 33rd episode of The Simple Sophisticate.

Today we are going to talk about how to live alone well.

And well, I know not everyone wants to live alone,

there are many of us out there who secretly

would crave to live alone.

And there are others of us including myself who are doing it and

loving it. So today I'd like to share my own experience but also some

statistics from research done that demonstrate how wonderful this time of our lives can be and a lot

of it has to do with our mindset but I also have some very specific tips and ways that you can revel in it.

I want to begin with a quote by Phyllis Hope.

She says, living alone affords an unparalleled opportunity to know yourself, to be yourself, and to develop yourself as a unique and interesting individual. And no doubt guys we are all unique

and certainly interesting individuals if we just take the time to find that within ourselves. Let's start with some interesting statistics. In Stockholm, Sweden, 60% of all dwellings are occupied by a single individual. 60% in Eric Kleinenberg's book Going Solo that was a

bestseller in 2013 and continues to be a source for this idea of living alone and why it's so popular or becoming more popular

in our modern culture.

He speaks about these statistics and the one I just mentioned from Stockholm, Sweden,

but also interesting to note that Denmark, Finland, and Norway, as well as Sweden,

they each sport, each of these countries sport 40 to 45 percent single occupancy

within all dwellings. When Japan is a close fifth with 30%.

We in the United States, if you're from the United States,

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