Is There Such A Thing As Too Much Quiet?

A young man accepted into one of the more prestigious performing arts high schools in the city goes there for the first couple of months and opts to transfer to one of the more challenging schools in the city. A neighbor who moves to a calmer more stable community stays there for a couple of months and moves back to the yelling, hollering, blaring of sirens and the screeching of tires in her old neighborhood. A sixth grade student is given a once in a lifetime opportunity to attend one of the top performing middle schools in the city, stays there for a month and chooses to come back to one of the lowest performing schools in the city. In all three of these instances, when asked why did you come back or why did you make that decision, the individuals said that "It was too quiet there." 

Now, I don't know about you, but my mind struggles to process that logic. You've left a chaotic situation for a more stable and calm place and then return to the chaos because the calm and stable is too quiet? I can't get enough peace and quiet and there are those who obtain it and then go back to the chaos. If this makes sense to you, please help me out in your feedback in the commentary section. 

A couple of weeks ago, my pastor preached a sermon titled A Question For Those Who Are Comfortable In Chaos and it centered on accepting dysfunction as a way of life or for too many as the only way of life. We must not and cannot accept dysfunction in our lives. That is not to say that things won't be dysfunctional, it is to say however, that we must always be striving to make functional what is dysfunctional. In other words, we must always be moving towards fixing or correcting what is broken or incorrect. I am truly perplexed as to how one could get to the place where so many others would love to be and then go back to the place where so many would love to get out of with the rationale of it being too quiet. You get to the mountain top and then come back into a valley that you know is chaotic, not to fix the chaos, but to join back with the noise. What they are saying is I am not happy unless I am hearing the fighting, the screaming, the cursing, the gunshots, etc. etc. etc., so therefore I will leave the quiet place and go back to that. To go back to fix the chaos is one thing; to go back to join in it and be a part of it is another. All three of the scenarios in the opening of the post are true with no names mentioned to protect the afflicted.  

For this critical thinker, leaving a place that is quiet to go back to a place filled with chaos because of the former being "too quiet," is something to critically think about. I invite you to hear me live on Saturday mornings as the host of The Reading Circle on gobrave.org and to follow me on Twitter @thinkcritical01.