When Everything Else Becomes Quiet

As I was getting ready for work this morning, I thought about silence.

Yes, silence. Just silence.

How little of it we have in our modern world—and also, how important it is to have it.

We go through life surrounded by so much noise. Constant noise. We have cell phones, laptops, computers, TVs, radios, and an endless amount of content available to us at any given moment.

I’ve noticed that I almost always have noise around me. More importantly, I choose to have noise around me.

If I go for a walk, I usually have headphones in my ears, listening to music, a podcast, or an audiobook.

If I’m driving, I have music playing, or I have my mom on speakerphone chatting with me.

If I’m getting ready for work, getting ready to go out, or doing just about anything else, there’s usually music, an audiobook, or a podcast playing in the background.

Noise is ALWAYS on.

Silence is rare.

And yet, I think silence is crucial for a happy life.

We need to learn how to live in silence—and maybe even more importantly, how to enjoy it.

Silence is healing.

Silence is renewal.

Silence teaches us to appreciate.

In some ways, silence and noise remind me of solitude and loneliness. I think sometimes we choose noise because we don’t want to feel lonely. But how lovely is it to deliberately choose silence because we want to experience solitude?

Before smartphones, if we went for a walk, we just… walked.

We noticed things.

We looked around.

We allowed our minds to wander.

I think we desperately need to return to a culture of observation. A culture that invites us to slow down, appreciate, explore, notice, and simply be.

Nothing can replicate the healing power of having a certain amount of silence in our day.

I attended a group meditation not too long ago. The requirement?

Silence. Stillness. Reflection.

I found myself a little fidgety. I started observing the people around me, and by observing them—instead of doing the reflecting I was supposed to be doing—I noticed something else.

They were fidgety, too.

We don’t really know how to sit still anymore.

How to be in silence.

How to be in solitude.

Think about it. We arrive on this earth alone—surely welcomed by other human beings—and we leave this earth alone, too. Yes, hopefully with loving people by our side, but ultimately, these journeys are ours to experience. Our arrival and our departure are deeply personal journeys into and out of this life.

Perhaps that makes learning to be comfortable in our own company even more important.

I think we ought to learn how to appreciate silence.

Because silence carries so much beauty, too.

Maybe we don’t need to fill every quiet moment. Maybe some of the things our hearts most need to hear can only be heard when everything else becomes quiet.