I learned to lower the volume
the way one dims a chandelier—
not out of scarcity,
but taste.
The world, as it happens, is
is very fond of its own narration.
It clears its throat at every corner,
offers commentary on my posture, my timing,
My supposed lateness to the rooms
I was never meant to enter.
So I muted it.
Not dramatically—no manifesto,
No public resignation.
Just a small, decisive gesture
of the interior hand.
A setting adjusted.
A life restored to its original sound.
There is a discipline to quiet.
A certain elegance.
You discover quickly how much noise
is simply repetition in better lighting.
I began to hear other things—
my own cadence, for one.
The steady insistence of it.
The way it never begged to be believed,
only followed.
Focus, I’ve found, is not austerity.
It is refinement.
The art of not attending every invitation
disguised as urgency.
The world dislikes this.
It prefers you available,
mildly scattered,
flattered into distraction.
It calls this openness.
I call it poor boundaries.
There is, too, a quiet humor
in declining the unnecessary—
the polite no, the unread message,
the meeting that evaporates
when not pursued.
A certain myth collapses there:
That brilliance must be visible
to be real.
It doesn’t.
Brilliance is often private.
It sits at a desk without announcing itself,
Rewrites a sentence until it breathes,
walks away when the room grows
too interesting.
It knows that attention
is not the same as recognition.
I have chosen to protect mine.
Not defensively—
that would be inelegant—
But with the composure of someone
who understands value
does not argue for itself.
There is texture in this life now.
Not the ornamental kind,
but the kind that holds.
Days with grain and substance,
conversations that do not perform,
time that does not apologize.
Abundance, I’ve noticed,
is quieter than advertised.
It does not arrive with spectacle,
but with sufficiency.
A fullness that resists explanation.
And so I continue—
not louder, not busier,
but more exact.
More attuned to what matters.
More willing to leave
What does not?
If the world calls out,
I let it.
It has always had excellent volume.
I prefer clarity–
Copyright © 2026 Sherley Delia | All Rights Reserved.
Healing Majestically 