What Can You Hear?

 *This post was written by a teen participant in AYM. Enjoy!

            Silence.

            In today’s world, this is sometimes the hardest thing to find, a place absent of the ringing of phones, the music of the airways, and the whizzing of cars. Years ago, people could escape to a room and experience the quiet they needed. Nowadays, the television from the other room blurs our minds and makes us feel trapped. Trapped in a world that is constantly noisy, a world where no one can hear the desperate plea of a quiet soul for just a moment of silence.

Being someone that could be considered a technology junkie, I am constantly surrounded by noise, whether it is the blaring of my iPod, the buzzing of my phone, or the newest YouTube craze. For the past three years, I’ve been living in a world so full of noise that not only can I not hear myself as I beg for silence, but I also can’t hear others as they try to call out for my help.

Two years ago, a good friend went through a personal crisis. When I first got the call about it, I was shocked. For once in my life, I was speechless. I racked my brain for days as I tried to remember everything she had said or done in the days leading up to it. I found nothing.

Looking back, I wondered if she had said or done something that, if I hadn’t been so consumed by the noise, I would have recognized as a cry for help. Had she cried out to me and I was too distracted to notice?

The guilt I felt for the months to follow taught me a very important lesson. Sometimes, all we need to do is to take a step back – a step out of the noise in our lives, a step toward the quiet, a place where we can listen to not only ourselves, but also others.

This step back for me has taken awhile. Many times as I drive by myself, I tell myself that I am going to turn off the radio and just think. However, song after song I find myself saying, “Maybe on the way home.” I tell myself this so often that it has become a habit.

It takes a lot of patience and determination to take this step. As I continue on this road away from the noise, I wonder if it is doing any good. Am I more aware of the people surrounding me? Only time will tell, but for now, all I can do is sit and wait in the silence.