Day 18 - Eat your next meal in silence (away from a computer).

I honestly don't remember the last time I ate a meal in silence, without my iPhone or computer or someone there to talk too. With today's technology everyone is always on their phones, it's funny because every time I go to dinner with my family and I look up every one is texting on their cell phones and I always tell them I wish we could all put our phones down just for one dinner, but the sad reality is that we never do, we laugh and talk and continue texting all while sitting in a restaurant at the dinner table.

When I looked up eating and sitting in silence it turns out there are many benefits you gain from being in silence. Silence can provide inner peace, who can remember the last time they sat in silence and heard the sound of their own breathing? The last time I did so was in yoga and only because they instructed us too, when you take a few minutes to quiet your mind and let go of all the issues in your life, you just allow yourself to let be and feel peace inside of you.
There's a saying that not until you can sit in complete silence with someone are you truly comfortable with them.  I've always felt that silence needs to be filled with something, otherwise the whole situation will get too awkward and uncomfortable. Only as I got older I realized that there are different ways of communication, words allow us to exchange information and sometimes express our feelings but silence is communication of the souls, there is something magical about just sitting quietly with another person and being in complete harmony with yourself and the outside world. Silence also energizes you, think of all the energy that we use while thinking, speaking and performing acts. Taking a few minutes to yourself will help your battery recharge.

With all of that being said, today on my lunch break instead of working or texting or going to lunch with a friend, I closed myself in our office's conference room and ate my lunch in silence. I don't want to lie and say that it was super mind enhancing because it wasn’t; instead I stared in awkward silence at my 100 calorie Cheeto’s pack trying to read the small lettering for fun. I didn't get any bright ideas or benefits of silence and solitude; I just tried to eat faster so that I could finish my meal and go run the errands I needed to do. Don't get me wrong, I love silence, especially when I am doing yoga or reading a book but silence with nothing in it is just weird. And I do know however that when I have my very own family I will have a rule of no technology at the dinner table, only our family and conversations including our highs and lows of our days. So that was my deed of the day, it's over with and that's all for now folks.