I’m an extrovert.

At least, I’m pretty sure I am.

For most of my childhood, I thought I was an introvert. My preferred hobby was reading, a quiet, often solitary hobby. At home, outside of meals, you’d find me in one of two places: in my bedroom, or at the downstairs desktop computer. And once the computer went to the great Best Buy in the Sky and I got an iPad for my birthday, I was almost exclusively in my room.

But that vision of myself changed in my freshman year of college.

I had a rough opening month of college. After one too many social blunders, I went into a kind of self-imposed exile. I went straight back to my dorm room after classes were done, was usually one of the first ones done when my floor went to dinner, and turned down every one of my roommate’s invitations to go to parties or meet people.

And I was miserable.

Which is how I found out that I wasn’t an introvert as much I was the least extroverted of four very extroverted siblings.

But I’m still not totally sure because, despite feeling energized in the presence of other people, I’m awfully comfortable with the quiet.

And my job has only reinforced that.

I work with middle schoolers. I will until June, when some of these kids graduate and move onto high school, some move up to eighth grade, and I wave goodbye to both groups and stop waking up at 5:30. But in this first month, I’ve discovered something.

Middle schoolers are loud.

In other news, water makes thing wet, it gets dark at night, and every 60 seconds a minute passes.

These days, quiet is rare, especially at work. I have 10 other coworkers, working with various grade levels, and even when I have our HQ room to myself, our HQ room is in the middle school hallway, so I can hear classes next door and the hubbub of class transitions.

All this to say, self-care nowadays is basking in silence.

We live in a loud society. Not to say that society was ever quiet, but in times past, you could get a respite from the screeching of society in ways that you can’t today. With the advent of social media and the ubiquity of smartphones, your personal peace and quiet is regularly updated by your favorite celebrities’ Tweets, your relatives’ Facebook posts, game notifications, a never-ending stream of TikToks–the list goes on.

Sometimes, I think humanity is growing afraid of quiet.

For evidence: consider the stereotype of the quiet schoolchild being a potential mass shooter. Also consider the line in every horror movie: “It’s quiet…too quiet.” Or the question every quiet person has been asked: “why are you so quiet?” As if there’s something wrong with someone who keeps to themself.

I think a life without quiet is a worrisome life. And I think that even though our society is devoted to the destruction of quiet, at our core we still know how important quiet is to our well-being.

After a hellish workday, what do you want to come home to? A crying baby, a barking dog, and the fire alarm going off? Or a quiet home? I rest my case.

Lastly, we must consider the spirituality of quiet. When people think “worship,” they tend to think bombast. Bands like Hillsong or Elevation Worship belting worship songs to crowds of thousands, or a church service, with hundreds of people raising a hallelujah. And I won’t act like that’s not a form of worship. But it’s not the only form. In fact, loud worship might be the farthest thing from adoration, depending on your heart’s intentions, so says Jesus in Matthew 6:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Matthew 6:5-6, NIV

Putting your everything into a rendition of “So Will I” is worship. So is meditation. So is clocking an hour in your prayer closet. So is joining a monastery. So is meditating on a verse, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer encouraged his students to do daily.

Conclusion?

If you’re feeling all over the place, or like your life is moving at a billion mph with no foreseeable slowing, make it slow. Take a brief break–five minutes, 30 seconds–and make your own quiet. Find a closet or a bathroom stall, take some deep breaths, and bask in the quiet.

And don’t be afraid of being alone with your own thoughts.

You might hear a Still Small Voice when you make time for the silence.