Dickson: What inspires us in 2024?

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SALT LAKE CITY — On this General Conference weekend for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I am thinking about what inspires us in 2024 and whether it’s changed in any appreciable way. So, I sat down for a one-on-one conversation with the President of Deseret Book Laurel Day.

“Our basic needs have not changed,” Day said. “What’s different now is the noise and the amount of noise. It’s so hard to shut out the world now.”

The truth of that statement made me pause.

“I think there is a deep need for peace and stillness in a way that there hasn’t been before,” she said. “For example, we’ve done a couple of books about stillness, helping people find stillness and calm in their lives. And it’s not there wasn’t a need for stillness 10 or 15 or 20 years ago, but I think there is something to be said for being reminded that we need to step back sometimes, step away from all of the chaos, even good chaos, and find stillness.”

24-hour media fast

This need for stillness reminds me of an assignment I give my students at the University of Utah. I teach a class there called Media and Society. Each semester, I ask the students to turn off all forms of media they control for 24 hours, and then write a piece on what they experience, how it affects them and what, if any, changes they might make to their media consumption going forward.

Many of the students struggle mightily with this assignment. They either break down and listen to a litte Spotify or watch a little YouTube or they describe real discomfort with sticking to the fast. Some of these students, who are mostly in their late teens and early 20s, express almost a fear of boredom, a fear of silence.

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Being digital natives, having access to the Internet for the whole of their lives and social media from their formative years, they have never known a time when they were just… bored. Boredom was always solved immediately with some form of stimulus. To deny themselves that is anxiety producing.

And maybe that’s the problem.

“I don’t think we realize how much we are bombarded,” Day said. “Between news and social media and life in general, there is just so much.”

Our brains are not wired for this

I’ve read medical experts comment that our brains were just not wired to take in as much information as we now do on a daily, even hourly, basis.

And I’m sure when Steve Jobs created the iPhone, as prescient as he was, he did not foresee the entire globe walking around with their face buried in their phones. He couldn’t have thought we’d stop talking to each other in person, stop reading and watching and listening for even a minute so we could just be. He never predicted that this constant access to information would prompt anxiety, especially in young people.

Defined by productivity

My generation (Baby Boomers) were raised on productivity. You were judged by what you produced. Your grades, your accomplishments, your work ethic, your earning — these were the (unfortunate?) measurements of worth.

Day can relate.

“I don’t know who I am if I’m not doing,” she said. “Even sometimes when I’m doing, I can feel unproductive if what I’m doing isn’t connected to some result. That is a scary space to be in when you realize your value or worth starts to get tied up with results and output. I worry we don’t let ourselves have enough stillness and calm without feeling guilty.”

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This was the first time I thought of stillness as something I not only need — but deserve.

“I’ve had to work hard to give myself permission to rest, meditate, pray, be still,” Day said, “because it’s not my natural state of feeling comfortable. My natural state of feeling comfortable is to be productive.”

Mine too.

So, on this day, with the sun pouring through my window, I give myself permission to breathe. To be still. To be inspired. With no need for further judgment or accomplishment.

My hope is that you can give yourself the same.

Amanda Dickson is the co-host of Utah’s Morning News and A Woman’s View on KSL NewsRadio. Follow her on Facebook and Instagram. 

Follow @amandadickson