From the pages of In Business magazine.
This is not the apocalypse I was looking forward to.
There’s not a robot in sight. Nor an alien. Not any vampires either. And the only zombies I see are my wife and me after weeks of trying to keep our two sons on task with their daily virtual lessons through school. I don’t even get ants, and yes, ant apocalypses are a thing.
As an unapologetic hermit — I mean, introvert — I always thought an apocalypse sounded grimly appealing. Yes, life as we know it would be inexorably and tragically altered forever, but think of the quiet! There’s a particular cultural touchstone I identify with here — Xander Harris, the best character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in no small part because he’s the only one without any special powers.
My favorite Xander moment comes from the episode, “The Zeppo,” when Xander, feeling left out from the rest of the Scooby Gang precisely because he doesn’t have any special powers, befriends a villainous student named Jack O’Toole and sets off on a world-saving adventure entirely on his own. In the episode’s climax, Xander confronts Jack, who happens to have been raised from the dead, in the boiler room of the high school as Jack attempts to set off a bomb that would bring the whole building down, killing everyone inside.
Jack argues with Xander that he’s less afraid of death because he’s already dead, but Xander notes that “‘walking around drinking beer with your buddies’-dead is a lot different from ‘being blown up and swept up by a janitor’-dead.” When Jack confronts Xander about the possibility of his own death, Xander simply says, “I like the quiet.”
Buddy, I can relate.
I know a lot of professionals have had a hard time adjusting to working from home long-term because of the lack of contact with other people. They miss the noise. I’ve had a hard time adjusting because apart from feeling busier than ever, now I have two boys around me 24/7. I miss the quiet.
In order to get through a prolonged period of isolation like this, it’s important for people to embrace that quiet. If not love it, at least learn to appreciate it. Maybe that’s scary. Sometimes we feel a need to fill the silence with words because we don’t like where our minds go when they’re left to wander on their own.
However, there’s a lot to be gained from spending time in silence. Among the things you’ll learn:
- Satisfaction — Silence teaches you to be happy with less.
- Appreciation — When you spend less time talking, you learn to appreciate what others are saying even more.
- Perseverance — Staying silent is a lot harder than speaking. Purposeful silence is an endurance activity just like running a marathon, with similar ups and downs.
- Thoughtfulness — When you speak fewer words, you’ll choose the ones you actually utter more carefully.
- Attentiveness — Think of words like clutter in a room. The more you clear out, the more you can see of everything else around you.
- Connection — Trying to complete a task with a partner in silence requires a lot of patience and understanding. It also creates a deeper understanding of one another and the connection people can share beyond words.
Things may not be “normal” again anytime soon but making the most of the newfound quiet moments in our lives may well make whatever new normal emerges after the COVID-19 pandemic ends even more fruitful.
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