A quiet environment is a sign of success

A quiet environment is a sign of success When I was looking at apartments I didn’t notice the incredibly noisy construction right outside our windows. I attribute this oversight to the same phenomena that happens in the video where you count basketball passes  â€" if you have never seen the video stop everything and go watch it. Quiet = money Vox did a video on how quiet has become a sign of quality.   And people sell quiet. Bose has become a noise reduction company, and so has Miele. And CEOs establish themselves as quality leaders by disconnecting their phones to have quiet time. We know a lot about the negative impact of noise, because rich people fund studies to squelch developers. Environmental noise effects not only our hearing, but our sleep, social skills, and cardiovascular health. Too much noise is a sign of poverty. So people paint their houses with noise-reducing paint,  and companies are trying to reduce their noise footprint as a way to attract top-flight employees. I find myself constantly hoping for ice storms at night so the construction is delayed and I wake up to quiet. Quiet = focus Im working with a group of writers, editing everything they write for a year. Theres one guy, Graham, who is a psychologist, and sometimes I feel like reading his stories is when Im quiet and still and its a daily meditation. Other days his stories stream like endless noise. One day, after ten rewrites, I told him I will kill myself if I have to read another version of this story. The next day, maybe to save my life, he sent a story about how there is no benefit to delaying a bad feeling. I told him to throw out the whole piece. Its too broad an idea, I told him, in case he was thinking of delaying the delete button. But now I will steal the best paragraph of his story and tell you that our instinct is to delay terribleness â€" like construction â€" but that delay doesnt help us and instead becomes emotional noise in the back of our minds. I would add a link to Grahams piece here, but of course, its in the garbage. I think we look for people who can help us find quiet. Amelia is my new friend. (That link requires $1 to read. But you know shes really my friend because the only other person Ive charged you to read about is Melissa.) Amelia creates quiet in my life by telling me what I should be worrying about. I cant stop worrying, but at least I can have a prioritized list. For me, focus means quiet. Quiet = good noise Specktral Quartet  commissioned 45 composers to write ringtones.  You can upload the ringtones to your phone  and then you turn your annoying, repetitive factory ringtones into something interesting and surprising. John Cage is a composer whose name is associated with quiet. His piece 433 is a solo for the piano, but the  pianist doesnt have any notes. So the audience sits in silence and has no choice but to notice there never really is silence. The composition encourages us to hear  all the noise around us as music. Quiet is mental. The best financial advice tells you that feeling financially secure is a state of mind; you can think yourself rich. I see how you can change your experience of noise so that it feels like quiet. Quiet is sometimes just better than whatever there was before. And just like we never really feel like we have enough money, we never really feel like we have enough quiet. Thats why they are both so special: you want more.