How to Drown Out Society's Useless Noise and Find Your Peace

Society is astonishingly loud.

Between political outrage, social media meltdowns, and emotionally targeted clickbait, it’s hard to hear your own thoughts over all the noise. Whether it’s coming from your friends, family, spouse, or even yourself, the dramatics of today’s complicated world always seem to come crashing in, fists flying, voices raised, angry, and ready to duke it out with anyone who’ll give it a whirl.

There’s no space left to stop and think; there’s no place to escape the flailing limbs. That’s why it’s up to you to carve out a little haven, one in which you are utterly free from all that cacophony. One in which you can listen to the things you need to hear to live in our wacky world without falling prey to its many trappings.

I’ve been stuck in that loud reality, and I know how it feels. Your voice isn’t heard, and when it is, people don’t like your opinions. You feel judged merely for standing by your own, carefully selected values. It’s lonely in that noisy, angry place, and you end up feeling outraged and despondent with nowhere to channel those emotions.

Thankfully, I’ve learned how to ditch the noise of the society we live in, and I didn’t even have to leave the city to do it. Let me share a few tips with you so we can live in peace in a noisy world.

Don’t feed trolls

I won’t tell you to turn off social media, although it’s a damn good idea.

I will say that you should avoid feeding the trolls. Don’t fall for the baited comments of angry people, and don’t try to correct what is obviously a misinformed individual.

They either know what they’re doing, or their ears are so firmly closed to any new information that they’ll bark at you like your neighbour’s angry chihuahua. You can’t have a meaningful discussion with a chihuahua, so don’t bother.

There’s something to be said for standing up for what you believe in, and that’s valid. But if you’re seeking a life of peace in an increasingly weird and wacky world, the internet is not the place to do that. Don’t engage.

Your mental health will thank you for that.

Experience nature

Most of my noise pollution comes from social media (and lately, legacy media), so a logical step for me to take while trying to quiet down my life was to avoid it.

I found the best way to do that was to take my entire self outdoors and away from social media and the people who worship it. Even in a big city like mine, there are paths and rivers to meander along, and listening to a good ol’ fiction audiobook while I wander a trail and imagine a world with no people in it (or just the characters in my latest audiobook, possibly) is surprisingly healing.

No matter where you live, there are ways to escape. You just have to seek them out.

Don’t react to emotional sabotage

There are people in my life who have a way with emotionally charged words that wriggle their wormy ways into my delicate heart and fester until I react.

I bet you know people like this too. Or maybe you’re one of them?

Don’t react to emotional sabotage, no matter who it’s coming from. Attacks that strike at your heart in this way are the very attacks that might bring you down from whatever carefully travelled peace you’ve parked yourself in. These attacks are also an attempt to bring you down to the angry, bitter level of the person spewing whatever hate or outrage has caught their eye today.

These are society’s sneaky doomsdayers. Don’t give in to their vitriol, because when you take a few minutes to think about what they’re saying, you’ll realize they’re just looking for allies for their cause.

No one needs that kind of stress.

Don’t get pulled into drama

Another type of person to avoid is one who is dramatic AF.

(I’m an introvert with an actual list of people-types to avoid; it comes with the job description.)

Drama queens (or kings!) are not to be trifled with. You know these folks: they are the ones who call or text you with their latest plot, keeping you unwillingly “in the loop” of whatever insane drama they’ve created for themselves lately.

The drama they find themselves in is almost always their own doing and sometimes, it’s entirely by design and yet, they have the audacity to complain about it.

And I mean a lot.

Don’t allow yourself to become an unwitting character in their ridiculous plot; you’ll probably miss the final cut anyway. Trust me, no one needs drama like that in their lives, and drama queens hack their way through friends like they’re paving a path through a jungle.

Don’t become roadkill; avoid them.

Zip it

There are definitely times to speak up and stand up for what’s right. There are also times when it’s best for your own sanity and wellbeing to just shut the heck up.

We’re all so extraordinarily verbose. We try to explain some feeling or experience to someone in an attempt to be honest, but more often than not, our inability to explain something clearly — probably because we’ve still been working through it while our mouths were doing all the labour—means that we end up saying inaccurate and potentially hurtful things.

That’s why writing is so glorious. You can erase, edit, and delete entire pages and no one is the wiser, but when you have to speak something out loud?

Gosh. I’m the worst at that. My foot is permanently wedged in my mouth, and I make so many ridiculous social snafus, it’s amazing anyone sticks with me. There have definitely been times in my life when I wish I had just clamped my wayward mouth shut until I knew exactly what I needed to say.

Doing that would have caused me so much less drama.

Read the classics

There’s nothing that will take you away from the bizarreness of today’s society like being whisked away to another time altogether.

When all else fails, I’m a huge proponent of reading the classics. Escapism is a great way to untangle yourself from the unnecessary drama and outrage in life. Unfortunately, so many of us escape to places that provide very little comfort — like YouTube, for example. A distraction? Yes. A true escape? Not so much.

But when you immerse yourself in a classic novel, you’re transported to another place. My personal favourite place to escape to is Longbourn, the Bennett family home from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, a place I’ve escaped to so many times that my book is falling to pieces. Any of Austen’s books are a safe place for me, and the comfort I find there is incredible.

The classics often discuss the politics and culture of a different time, yes, but at least it’s not this time. And life is so different than it was back then that it’s almost like visiting another planet. The beautiful language they use to describe even the most basic things, the pretty words they say to each other — I need that in a world in which my daughter often refers to me as “bruh.”

If possible, try hermiting

I did say you don’t have to leave the city to escape the noise, but if you have a cabin or cottage in the middle of nowhere, I’m envious.

For one, you’re escaping into nature in the best possible way. Smores and campfires and snuggling under a blanket on mild summer nights? Yes please. The main benefit of this kind of escape, however, is the absence of people.

Not all people, of course. Some people are genuinely good for the soul. But a literal escape from the drama of social media and the self-obsession of so many people in society would be really refreshing from time to time.

If you are able to escape from both people and the media, you’re golden. Take advantage of that when you can; in today’s world, you might need it.

Turn everything off

Our phones are constantly letting us know about things. Also, happenings. Deals. Likes. Messages. More likes.

When you come away from this article, get out your phone and go through your apps. Most, if not all, will find a way to ping you from time to time — maybe daily — to draw your attention away from your reality. The worst for this are apps like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter (seriously: I don’t care who someone I follows decides to subscribe to, Mr. Musk!) Social media is on a serious mission to keep you plugged in.

So unplug. Or, at the very least, turn off all useless notifications. You’re not that important, and that’s actually a wonderful thing.

Believe in yourself (and what you believe in)

The best way to shut out the noise is the be secure in your position.

That might sound a bit weird, so let me explain. Most of the noise, as I said, is people bickering over who is marginalized, who is right, who is wrong, who is left, who’s radical, and what the best course of action is for the overall benefit of our society. These arguments fester and putrefy as more people weigh in, with everyone pretty much saying the same thing over and over again, getting nowhere, and listening to no one.

I’ve already advised against becoming one of these angry mobsters on more than one occasion, and I stand by that today. The solution is to be well informed of your position. You should know the ins and outs of both sides of your belief, and you should know your argument.

Then you pick your moment. You’re armed with your evidence, and the truth backs your position. That doesn’t mean you join the ranting ravers online, though. It just means that you have confidence in your position, and should you find yourself in a discussion with a real live human who is willing to listen to some new information?

You respectfully present it and let it fly.

By believing in your values and what you stand firm for, you’ll end up being happier. You’ll be at peace with the squabbling of the rest of the world as they try to either convince their enemies of their truth or drown them out entirely because you will have risen above it all.

Rise above the noise and experience the kind of peace and quiet that you can only find within yourself—a true silence that lets you finally think clearly.

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This post was previously published on ILLUMINATION.

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