Noise is becoming the true pandemic.

Last time when I was here writing this blog, I was a copywriter. I worked in an office building. I worked alongside adults. The place was for the most part quiet. Well, kind of. The sound of being the only black person in the office, made a loud noise that you cannot quite understand if you have never lived through being a black person in white spaces, but I will talk about that another time.

Today, I am an elementary school teacher, which provides, for lack of better words, quite the opposite type of environment. Between the constant barrage of questions, the attitudes over receiving simple directions, and the seemingly endless sounds of children being children, my world gets pretty noisy.

Yet, this is not a piece designed to compare the differences between these two professions and their respective sound levels. No, what I am talking about today is what to do when the world around us gets noisy, loud, frustrating, degrading, and overall disruptive to our way of life.

After all, all humans are simply trying to live our lives. So here are my solutions to finding your own peace daily, no matter how chaotic the sounds.

1. Shut Up

I apologize for the harshness of this message but my sweet honey love sugar pop, stop talking. Some days I wished I had kept my mouth closed, not because I said anything wrong but simply because I was adding to the noise.

Our worlds can be chaotic, it's true, that's a well-known fact. Yet, lesser known is the truth of how we add to some of the chaos we are feeling or seeing sometimes.

Our desire to be heard overrides our desire to listen, often more times than not. Then we become another hum in the greater macrocosm of hums that become a perpetual noise akin to refrigerators running or bathroom fans spewing out warm air. We do not take breaths in between because we want to be heard, understood, appreciated, seen as witty, thought of as worthy, chosen by others. We do not pause to realize when or if our voices are contributing to the world's peace or are adding to the noise.

This may seem like a way to quiet you down. Make a complacent sheep out of a rebel with a cause. But that is not my intention at all. I know the power of using one's voice once we have found it. Instead, I am talking about the energy and space we take up and create by the act of moving our tongue, lips, vocal cords, to produce sounds that may or may not need to be made.

Of course speak when the moment calls for it, when the time is right, when the opinion is beneficial to the moment. But please know that all I hope to do by harshly requesting that we shut up is to help us realize that part of the chaos of our worlds is caused by the things we say, the opinions we share, the words we choose, and the rate at which we choose to be heard over choosing to listen to others. 

So at the end of the day, we are all humans, most with mouths that function properly, but with all this free will we might as well choose wisely.

2. Sit Quietly With You

Put the phone far away. Lay down the laptop. Power down the tablet. Turn off the tv, because it's time to get quiet.

Sweetie pea, part of the reason we are not experiencing much peace right now, or at times, is because our desires for distractions are louder than our desires for confronting THE noise.

We know THE noise. That inner noise within. The voices that say "this" and "that", the thoughts that match or do not match the reality we face, the feelings that seem ready to take us down at any point at their own discretion.

Yeah, I know THE noise. So, of course I understand that sitting with oneself is not easy at first, but when we do it enough the sounds become less of a ruckus and more of a chorus. Soon we have sat with ourselves so frequently that the chorus begins to harmonize and then comes a sweet, sweet symphony.

Sitting with ourselves opens doors to getting to know ourselves.

Getting to know ourselves opens doors to being aware of ourselves.

Being aware of ourselves opens the door to peace.

Although oversimplified, from experience I can tell anyone that no lies have been told here yet.

So... yeah... again...

choose wisely.

(P.S. If sitting with yourself for too long, prepare for a different type of noise, but I will talk about that later.)

Finding our peace in a noisy world is no easy task. 

To our right there are distractions galore to keep us never present and always guessing. 

To our left are our desires threatening to be heard no matter what, despite the need for everyone to shut up and listen.

But it all comes down to a choice: a life lived for desires and distractions or a life of peace?

Well, for now let's all be proud of ourselves after all we are here in this moment, reading this, and more than likely seeking peace despite the naysayers, rude opinions, and noisy inner monologues. 

Let this be our first flag on the mountain of peace for we are here because we desire peace and are willing to find peace wherever peace hides, whether that means turning off the distractions around us or tuning into the peaceful souls that are us. 

I am proud of you. I am proud of me. I am proud of us.

Keep up the good work and let's keep fighting for our right to have peace in our lives.

Until next time. Stay peaceful and true to you, my friends.