Having “Quiet Time” Helps Me Walk through the Valley of Self-doubts
“Quiet Time” by my definition is a period of time we set aside to do things that not only we truly enjoy doing but meanwhile help us discover more of who we are at the moment. It shows health benefits as well. I have attached several great resources for your reference at the end of my article.
Having “Quiet Time” is not just being alone. It is a time when we take a brief moment off our regular life to do things that will truly refresh our minds. Things like journaling, creating arts, or spending some time in nature, help us reflect on what matters to our heart, and reveal to us about all the emotions that are inside us that we normally ignored from daily life.
I didn’t recognize the importance of “Quiet Time” until recently. Pandemics had set up a time when all of us wonder who we are after we start to realize how fragile human beings are.
I allowed myself to live my life in auto-pilot mode for such a long time that I thought happiness simply comes from a stable income. If I have a job with a good salary, then I will be happy. However, I was wrong.
Having “me time” helps me find out how I want my life to be
Everyone could be different, but we know the only person we can’t lie to is ourselves. Not our family. Not our coworkers. Not anyone on the street.
I started to question my value at work at the end of 2019. I knew the issue is not about if that job fits me. It’s about if I truly know what I want out of a job. I didn’t realize this until I spent weekends of months in the entire year of 2019 walking in nature like our beloved Da’an park in Taipei. Every time I circled the park, I had no other choice but to face my deepest fear and doubts while walking alone with just myself.
Having “me time” helps me re-orient and start developing skills that will make me think “I’m glad I did…” in the future
Then I realized I need to branch out to explore more and identified what are the key areas I want to grow as a person, especially those marketable skills.
So I started to join multiple meetups, from coding workshops to agriculture volunteer work and even now a data analysis Bootcamp. The contents that I’ve absorbed and the people I’ve interacted with inspired me and encouraged me to live a life that I’ve never thought of — write as much as I want, make stuff with code as much as I can, learn more about people and empathize their needs as deep as we possibly could.
I feel my creativity of materializing ideas to make it work, and the spirit of willingness to open up, write and express my opinions, are all restored to their destined, original level.
I don’t feel my true self is being bent towards an unnatural angle anymore like a plant that’s deliberately bent towards the ground but it’s supposed to grow towards the sun. My heart is also like a wild garden that hadn’t been well taken care of for some time. Finally, the roots of bitterness have been recognized and have been constantly removed (still in the progress though!), now the garden has left with more room for other beautiful things to grow, kindness, gentleness, and so on, and they’re looking forward to sprouting and flourishing.
It will be a bit messy, but it’s going to be ok.
I hope my story will inspire you to set a moment for yourself, not worrying about being self-centered, but to re-center yourself, which will enable you to from this very moment to live a life that your future self will truly thank you for.
Thanks for reading and Have a wonderful day ahead :)
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