“One day Abba Longinus questioned Abba Lucius about three thoughts saying first, ‘I want to go into exile.’ The old man said to him, ‘If you cannot control your tongue, you will not be in exile anywhere. Therefore control your tongue here, and you will be in exile.’ Next he said to him, ‘I wish to fast.’ The old man replied, ‘Isaiah said, “If you bend your neck like a rope or a bulrush that is not the fast I will accept; but rather, control your evil thoughts.”’ He said to him the third time, ‘I wish to flee from men.’ The old man replied, ‘If you have not first of all lived rightly with men, you will not be able to live rightly in solitude.’”
This saying reminds me of the thoughts of Meister Eckhart, quoted in Dangerous Mystic:
"I was asked, 'Some people shun all company and always want to be alone; their peace depends on it, and on being in church. Was that the best thing?' And I said, 'No!' Now I see why. He who is in a right state, is always in a right state wherever he is, and with everybody. But if a man is in a wrong state, he is so everywhere and with anybody."
Solitude doesn’t guarantee anything. It doesn’t guarantee a change in character. Sometimes it can just be escapism.