The Importance of Silence

Today we live in a highly connected world. We are connected via Facebook, Google+, Linkedin, Twitter, WhatsApp and whatever else social media that exist. Our world is extremely noisy.

If you visit my at home you will be amazed by the level activity. My household is a vociferous bunch. For me is not uncommon for the following cacophonous activities to be taking place simultaneously in my household:

• Washing machine and dryer going,
• Television going,
• Adult children watching movie or music video online without the use of headphones
• Marisa online on TVO Kids plus loudly banging different toys together.

In between all of the clinking and dis-harmonic chaos my wife and I may attempt to have some kind of meaningful conversation about our children and life.

Despite our connectivity and noise around us, some of people still enjoy silence. Silence for me is a truly powerful tool to reflect and think. As a leader and business owner I need silence to reflect and think. I love to find silence. I love to have quiet time.

Silence for me is time to reflect and think. The lack of reflective time will hold you back. Silence is observable and loud. If you doubt me trying following exercise:

One

Have a conversation with the person next to you and inject noticeable pauses between your words. What happened?

Two

Now suggest to the person to do the same thing. What happened?

Three

Let the person continue speaking with noticeable pauses between his or her words. This time listen to reaction in your mind.

Have you noticed the pauses between the person’s words? In those blank spaces or long pauses what was going on in your mind?

Silence is a very skillful reflective trick. Silence is beautiful, distinctive and profound. It is deep and somehow or the other there is so much freedom to be found in silence.

Once you experience the taste of silence you will understand its value. In our highly connected and noisy world I encourage you to let silence grow on you.

Silence is golden, cherish it and let it grow on you.  Explore your silence because self-reflection is important to our development and learning. John Dewey, a renowned psychologist and education reformer, claimed that experiences alone were not enough. What is critical is an ability to perceive and then weave meaning from the threads of our experiences. The function of self-reflection is to make meaning. The creation of meaning is at the heart of what it means to be human.

Silence helps us to discover who we are as individuals, what kind of relationships we desire, and what we value and believe about life. Occasional disconnecting and tuning out the noisy world helps us to develop the ability to reflect and grow.

Silence can impart more emotion than your favourite song or motive in contrast to our highly connected, noisy and busy world. Pure silence when are disconnected and all the noise dies down. It is serene and can lean to the purification of our deepest inner thoughts. Our search of the pearl of wisdom and our strength comes through the vow of silence. It consists in self-imposition of periodic silence and periods that a free of indulging in injurious, useless or untruthful speech. It is also a period when do not speak of our own faults and weaknesses because we do not want by speaking of them we lend provide traction to strengthen them. Silence is also important even when speak about the things that are true and just. We should not speak even when it is true and just unless at proper times, to proper people, under proper circumstances.

For Mahatma Gandhi silence was both a physical and a spiritual necessity. He said “Speak only if it improves upon the silence.” He also said “Originally it was taken to relieve the sense of pressure. Then I wanted time for writing. After, however, I had practised it for some time I saw the spiritual value of it. It suddenly flashed across my mind that that was the time when I could best hold communion with God.”

Do you cherish silence?

Mark McKenzie is a leading Subject Matter Expert in financial services regulation and supervision as well as a professional motivational speaker, corporate trainer and youth mentor.  He can be contacted by email mastbmckenzie@gmail.com or by telephone 647-406-4622. Read my blog  http://mastbmckenzie.blogspot.ca/ and always write me a comment and share. Follow me on Twitter @mackynacky. Connect with me on www.youtube.com, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.