#098: The Power of Silence

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In 2016, silence isn’t being sought out often. I see people every day driving down the road talking on their bluetooth earpieces, changing the radio station, while drinking their coffee, and eating their morning bagel. These same people are headed to work to only throw themselves into a ten hour workday of clients who need assistance and endless emails. They will then drive home, again talking on their phone, and will try to spend a few minutes with their family, only to lose them quickly to the need for sleep. They will then decide to fall asleep themselves due to exhaustion, and will wake up the following day for a repeat of the day before. Maybe you can relate to this lifestyle, but the glaring issue in this is the absence of silence.

The power of silence is often overlooked, only so a few minutes of work and imagined productivity can be had. But when there is no room given for silence in one’s day, pressures mount, and the room needed to exhale isn’t given. We must be given the time to breathe, to rest, to reflect, to prepare. And when there is a constant push and pull in every single direction, something must give, and it will be one of the two: your sanity or your schedule.

You see, the problem is that some people have bought into the lie that they can just keep going, without the need of recharging. This mentality is a trap, a myth, and a letdown. It’s all of these things because the tyrant of work is designed to never let us discover ourselves, let alone the world around us. Without silence, no wonder stress is so prevalent. We need silence to live our very best lives.

If we remain busy all of our days, always focused on the next task at hand, we will never gain the opportunity to dabble in the beauty that our lives and the world around us have to offer. If there’s never any time for silence, if there’s never any time for recharging and discovery, then it will be our unfocused busyness that will end up being our very worst enemy in the end. This is what creates the scene of people arriving at the end of their lives, only to regret their vast amounts of wasted time, and their lack of devotion to finding all that life had to offer.

You need silence, because you need direction. If you always take the next step, only because other people tell you to, you will miss out on directing your own life in the way it should go. If you don’t create dreams and aspirations for yourself, and passionately pursue them, other people will recruit you for their dreams instead.

Now that you see just how important silence is, here are three ways that you can find silence in your own life:

• Schedule at least a fifteen minute period of time each day where silence is your only focus.
• Know the exact spot where you want to be silent at. Whether it’s at your spot on your favorite trail, or in your office sipping on coffee in your favorite mug, go to a spot where inspiration flows.
• You can use some of this time to shut everything completely off in your mind, and some of this time to strategically plan your day. Your main goal should be stillness with no exterior influences. In these moments of silence, just be.

Silence is something that everyone can partake in. Maybe you have been afraid to be silent in the past, but please know that there’s nothing to fear. You don’t always need to be doing something to be productive. In fact, I hope you find your moment of silence each day to be something you look forward to and benefit from immensely.

Now, go and find silence, today.