Quiet time

It has been one of those weeks, always something to d and always place to be. Why is it so hard to find a few moments of quiet each day?

Actually it's not. The problem is opportunity costs. For those of you not familiar with the term it comes from economics and means: You only have a limited number of resources and if you spend them to do X then you may not have enough to do Y. Because of this the cost of doing X is really the resources spent doing it plus the missed opportunity of Y. how does this apply to finding time for quite?

Well finding time to sit quietly and just relax, for the most part, does not sound important enough, sexy enough or entreating enough. A friend needs our help doing something that seems more important than quiet. Sitting peacefully at home is not as sexy as going to the beach with a loved one. And for most of us an evening of quite contemplation just sounds boring compared to going out with friends.

However what are we missing out on by not giving our selves time to recharge to introspect and in general just be quiet?

Quiet time helps us reduce stress: by creating a place and time to relax and not worry we give ourselves a chance to calm down from the day. This quiet should not just be in your surroundings but in your head as well. Silence your nagging thoughts and let them go. Let your mind fall upon things you find calming and enjoyable. One end result of this is better sleep. As we train ourselves to let go of stress sleep comes easier.

Our quiet time can also be used for introspection. Assessing our progress in personal growth and devising new strategies to improve. We need these personal strategy sections to make sure we stay on track.

The power of general quite is underrated, the phone calls emails and other demands for our attention bombarded us every day. We need to find silence from all of this, not for the sake of productivity but for the chance to remember who we are. We are not our job, we are not our friends, we are not even our community we are just our selves. We have a commitment to being the best us we can be and that start with knowing who we are and not letting who we are get lost in the background radiation from the world.