Science has shown us that babies grow in the quiet hours while they sleep. And more recently we’ve learned that exposure to nature – and the stillness it brings – can actually help with hypertension and mental health. So why do we fill our waking hours with noise and distractions?
I remember as a kid, my parents sometimes returning from visiting neighbours or friends and criticizing them for having the television on all the time. At the time I agreed with them. Who needed that noise all the time. Somehow, slowly over the past few years, I’ve fallen further into that trap than I like to admit. I’m not sure why. It started with having the radio on all the time, which wasn’t so bad.
Maybe it was the exhaustion of parenting three tiny children that led me to turn on the TV and collapse in front of it every night. Maybe it was the need to hear another grown-up voice in the house, when there was just me. And then there was the social media hit. It became easier and easier to “watch” what everyone else was doing than to actually do new things myself. After all, I rationalized, I needed to be online for work, right? I had to stay connected and not miss anything. Gradually – so slowly that I didn’t see it happening – I forced silence out of my life. I forced out reflection and intellectual stimulation. And so somehow, “me” got left behind.
When I look at it, after a full week away from work, and a conscious effort to abstain to some degree, I see that perhaps I originally filled the silence because I didn’t have the mental bandwidth to do more than just cope with what was on my plate. But then it became habit, and worse than that, it became an excuse. I was too “busy” to do the self-reflection necessary to grow. If there was no time, there was no need to look into the deep dark corners of my life, to consider new ideas or to do anything other than what I was already doing.
Like many, I make resolutions every year, with almost no real chance of success. This year, though, rather than outline all the changes I “intend” to make, I’m just going to make room for space, for silence and for contemplation and see where that leads me. I hope it leads me to new thoughts, new ideas and new experiences, and to sharing them with old, new, and yet-to-be friends.
In preparation this past week, before 2017 even began, I’ve picked up books – real books, not just fluff – and dedicated time to reading them and truly contemplating their contents, without even music in the background. I picked up a knitting project I could never find time for. I cleaned out some cupboards, which perhaps metaphorically prepares me for more mental space. Tomorrow (gulp!) I’m even going to cancel my cable, something I realized over the past few months that I simply don’t need.
Silence is golden, they say. Let’s see what riches it brings me in 2017.
