The Power of Silence
Why taking just a few minutes each day to embrace silence can help create a meaningful life
BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP. BEEP…
Your ringing alarm jolts you awake. To make matters even worse, it’s Monday morning. Time to shower and get ready for the day. But, before you go do that, if you are like most smartphone users, one of the first (if not the first) things you will do is reach for that cell phone.
Immediately, you will slide in and out of notifications that came in while you were snoring. Then, you will run through what occurred in the Twitterverse while you were gone for all of six or seven hours. You can’t ignore Facebook either, right? Might as well refresh that news feed and see what went on in your friends’ lives between the (highly exciting) hours of midnight and 7 AM.
Now that you’re on a roll of sorts, why not take a look at those 19 (or more) emails that came in during the night as well? You take about five to ten minutes to respond back to the most important ones while making a mental note to address the remaining ones when you arrive at work. Once the impromptu email session is complete, you promptly turn off the phone and begin heading for the shower.
But, you suddenly recall that your friend, Jim, reminded you yesterday to view the Instagram photos he took on his trip to Dubai last month. Since you are also planning a trip to the “City of Gold” in the coming months, it seems sensible to spend at least a few minutes checking out Jim’s Dubai photos to pique your interest. While you’re viewing the Dubai Instagram photos that Jim took, a Snapchat push notification comes in. It’s your friend, Tommy, who has sent you a well-timed Snapchat which makes it abundantly clear that Ben Affleck has some serious competition in the ‘playing Batman’ category. You’re none too impressed, but it gets an early morning laugh out of you.
Finally, after 20 minutes of this utter madness of closing one app and opening another (sometimes two or three at the same time!), you “start” your day.
The Noise
Now, consider a morning that looks like this: You turn off the ringing alarm. It’s still Monday morning — we can’t change that. But, instead of spending the next 15 to 20 minutes on your phone figuring out what went on in the world, you choose to make sense of what is going on in your own internal world.
Instead of hustling and bustling through nine or ten apps, you slowly run through the nine or ten most important tasks you must address today. You, perhaps, use those handful of minutes to embrace the stillness and silence that only an early morning can provide. Or, you take some time to write in your gratitude journal the things that you are grateful about in your life.
Finally, you spend the remaining time in relative silence and peace since you know these few minutes may very well be the only pockets of silence you will have in your day before you enter the “noisy” world.
While this alternative scenario ultimately results in a calmer you, most of us will opt for the frantic “getting up to speed of things” scene I depicted at the start of this article. And, don’t feel distraught because I wholeheartedly complete the same mad dash run-through of the online world’s happenings the moment I wake up as well.
But, why are we so attracted to this weird lifestyle choice when we could be taking things a bit more slowly and “silently”? Why must we feel as if checking and immediately responding back to emails or text messages is the most important thing in our lives? Why can’t we realize that constantly checking Twitter or Facebook throughout the day isn’t the most important thing (and that it’s probably more anxiety and stress inducing than we’d like)?
Because, we are attracted to the “noise.”
The noise is anything that fills up what would have otherwise been our pockets of silence and tranquility. In his book “Silence,” writer Josh Long states, “this stress and pressure of being online is so self-perpetuating that we find ourselves grabbing for our phones instinctively in any free moment” (Long, 14). He goes on to add, “we are caught up in this “glorification of busy” that leaves us over-worked and exhausted, while yielding nothing remarkable at the end of the day. Even after months of work we have nothing of note to show for our busyness” (Long, 14).
Many people try to combat this new onslaught of information with the extreme attitude of getting rid of everything. They delete social media accounts and take information sabbaticals, but I believe that we need to understand that this is our new consciousness.
— Josh Long, Silence (Page 15)
While impulsively deleting our Facebook and Instagram accounts in the hopes of kicking the habit of frequent usage, many of us will find the social media world too compelling. And, in due time, we’ll find ourselves picking up right where we left off on social media. Long offers some key advice for those individuals suffering from these symptoms, “it’s important to note here, that technology isn’t the enemy, our own lack of self-control is. Technology is a beautiful thing that moves humanity forward, it’s just that we have to be disciplined in our use of it. It can help us with our purpose or it can be the biggest source of distraction. The choice is really up to us” (Long, 17).
Nelson Mandela
Author and leadership advisor, Robin Sharma, recently shared an insight he gleaned from the tumultuous time that Nelson Mandela had while being imprisoned: “It was the solitude, degradation, devastation and inhumanity of that time in confinement that made him who he became.” Sharma adds, “while he was on Robben Island, he read the books of the iconic leaders. He studied the habits of the great souls. He reflected on the key moral virtues. He transmuted hostility into opportunity. He transformed his anger into forgiveness.”
For Madiba, “it was the time away from the world that allowed him to lead in the world.” The time that Mandela spent in silence and desolation while being unjustly imprisoned actually built the foundation upon which he was able to galvanize and free an entire nation from the oppressive powers that ruled them. In other words, the silent moments of Nelson Mandela’s life made all the difference.
Isn’t there a chance those silent moments can have just as huge an impact on our lives?
Jake Knapp
In 2013, Jake Knapp, a design partner at Google Ventures, decided that enough was enough. This meant no “web browser. No email. No Twitter, no Instagram, no Facebook” on his iPhone. Knapp adds, “But no, the phone [wasn’t] broken. I actually did it on purpose. It was supposed to be a one week experiment, and now it’s been months, and I don’t want to go back.”
What did Mr. Knapp do in his newfound free time now that he wasn’t constantly attached to his iPhone? He lived life.
Over the last 12 months I’ve learned to enjoy (or at least, be OK with) moments of boredom. I reach for my phone a lot less often. It’s probably just my imagination, but it feels like it’s easier to concentrate when I need to get things done or tackle a big project.
Times on the bus when I would’ve checked email, I listen to music or just look around. I even started meditating on the bus (yes, really! And, uh… please don’t mug me) using an app called Calm. I can’t believe I’m the hippy dippy weirdo meditating on the bus using an app. But I’m actually a lot happier doing that than I was with my tweets.
— Jake Knapp, My year with a distraction-free iPhone (and how to start your own experiment)
How I Cultivate Periods of Silence
Personally, while I realize embracing the moments of silence and inactivity are of the utmost importance, I still find it difficult to put into practice. But, I am improving a bit each day. For instance, since I am a runner, I find that instead of listening to music during my runs, I remove the headphones while running and simply unplug from the technology world. Now, my runs have become the perfect time and place where I can do most of my thinking. But, usually I will spend a portion of the run just turning my brain “off” and focusing on the world around me. Just observing. Never thinking.
In essence, embracing the ‘silence.’
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