I have been thinking about this statement a lot lately… moving in silence. I think there’s a lot to be said about telling someone in the past tense, that something happened rather than telling someone beforehand what you plan on doing or what you intend to do. For example, what sounds better to hear?

a) I’m planning on attending UW in the fall; or

b) I’m finishing the last of my prerequisites at community college and I got accepted to UW in the fall

I suppose that’s the difference between impressing and progressing; when you say statement A, you’re trying to impress those around you and with statement B, it’s not about them anymore, it’s about you and your personal progression.

When I think of moving in silence, I often think of the Navy. I think of my time repairing our nation’s fleet, specifically submarines; the life of a submariner is a silent service, so to speak. Although I never served in the military as anything more than a civilian employee, I often reflect on what it means for me to follow the ways of a submariner; to serve silently. My best answer to this question is to move in silence, progress and conquer in silence.

Now, I am a very public person by nature. As I have gotten older, I have learned to value my privacy a lot more. When it comes to mental health and my own mental health specifically, I will always be a valiant advocate and ally to those who struggle. I will always speak up and out for what I believe in when it comes to mental health issues. But as far as my own personal life goes, I am learning not to post everything I think and feel via social media. The only exception I have to this is blogging, because blogging is basically my own diary of what I feel and think at the time that I write it.

I must say that moving in silence is almost isolating, yet very liberating at the same time. I’m working on so many different projects right now and I want to tell you all about it, but I know it will be that much more satisfying if I finish my product(s) before sharing with everyone here at Precarious Aquarius.

I have always believed in the elementary saying, “Sharing is Caring” for most things in life. But if you look at anybody or anything that has virtually exponential growth, they move and succeed in silence. They share their success after it has happened. Some goals are more obvious than others. When I reached my first 100 followers on this page, I moved in silence. I didn’t start saying yahoo! I have 15 followers, let’s celebrate! I was ecstatic about those 15 followers and I told my friends and family, only those close to me. But I waited and was patient. Less than eight months into the blog, I was rewarded with my 100 followers and I celebrated with a new blog post that I typed out on my new MacBook Pro.

If I had started boasting about my number of followers before I hit 100, I would have said this is great, but my goal is to reach 100 followers and your response would be, “No shit, Sherlock, of course you want more followers, isn’t that obvious?” And my response would be to cry. Lol just kidding. I would agree. Which is why I didn’t boast about my follower count until I reached my goal.

Other goals are less obvious like my desire to start a YouTube channel. Well, technically, I already have one video up, but I mean to consistently shoot, edit, and post new content weekly to my channel. Unless you talked to me for a while, it would only then be brought up. But nobody wants to hear about your plans for a YouTube channel, they want to see your content and what you have to say.

It’s liberating to be silent about your own personal goals because for one, if you fail, you don’t have to tell anyone because you didn’t tell anyone to begin with. Sometimes disappointing yourself is worse than disappointing others, but disappointing others with failures of completing your personal goals is difficult to deal with in its own right. But if you are grinding by yourself, it’s just you that you must deal with; there’s no expectations except the ones you place on your own shoulders. When you succeed in a task, it is so satisfying because you did it by yourself, with no one to thank but you.

Some may argue that they want the support of their friends and/or family when doing major or even minor tasks or projects. It can be nice to have their support since they can motivate you when you have no grind or motivation left, but like I said earlier, if you fail in your endeavor, they can either rally for or against you. Then again, if your friends and family don’t support you in most endeavors, even the failed ones, you need new friends.

Then there are some endeavors you partake in, but must involve your friends if it affects your friendship with them. But I wouldn’t tell more people than is required because not everyone out in the world cares about your successes. More people than not probably want to see you fail and so the less people who know, the better. I have learned this the hard way.

For example, ya’ll know about my desire to go back to school. But I know a lot of people who would sabotage my happiness if they knew I was going to try and get my Master’s degree, which is why this information stays between my parents who will help pay for school, my best friend who is affected because he’s my biggest cheerleader, this blog aka my diary, and I. The more people that know, the more people can get in my head and affect what I can and cannot do. I already have enough doubt that my own head creates, I don’t need anymore doubt from anyone else.

Moving in silence has its benefits and its downfalls, but overall it’s my new way of living and it has been super satisfying to succeed in silence. Silence and peace of mind is a virtue that most people don’t possess and I know for me personally, it’s taken me a long time to get to this point. I’m not going to sacrifice this new sense of self anytime soon.

So, tell me in the comments what you think about moving in silence! Are you public with your life goals and dreams or do you only share your successes (or failures)?

Much love,

Dani