Silence The Noise

You know, it’s ironic that the very thing that has been keeping me from writing this particular blog is what inspired it; noise. The type of noise that is silent yet deafening all at the same time. Allow me to define what I mean by noise in the context I’ve been honing in on for the last couple of months: that which distracts you from focusing on what you can control in order to move forward and make progress.

What’s interesting about this noise, is that it “sneaks” up on you and makes itself endlessly comfortable, surprisingly, without having to fight you very much. Why? Because it’s a scapegoat, a justification of “why” you feel the way that you feel. It’s pride in yourself as much as it is self-doubt, it’s frustration as much as it is gratification, it’s what fuels your drive just as much as your procrastination, and more than anything, it’s the lies your tell yourself in order to not have to deal with the truth.

For me, the truth wasn’t something I could immediately see or come to terms with as quickly as I would have liked. I got some news that I wasn’t happy about and quite frankly disagreed with altogether. To make matters more difficult, I fell down this rabbit hole of justifying why I disagreed with it, so much so, that it consumed me for a good period of time; it’s all I could talk about really. It got to the point that what I needed (or at least I thought I did) to silence the noise was to hear that I was right for feeling the way that I felt, that it was okay to be disappointed and frustrated. Yet, no matter how much validation I received, no matter how much confirmation I got, I still couldn’t really move past it.

That was, until I met with one of my mentors, ironically, the one who delivered the news I alluded to earlier. Despite wanting very specific validation from him, what I got instead was the opposite, and to my surprise, exactly what I needed in order to silence the noise.

We talked through a lot of what was going on in my mind. I laid out my reasoning behind things, and after some rambling, towards the end, I shared the source of it all, I expressed that ultimately no matter what I did, I just felt like it wasn’t enough. It was in that moment that I realized the truth I had a hard time accepting all along: the loudest noise in the room was my deeply rooted fear of not being enough.

“Enough for who…” is what he responded without skipping a beat… “enough for who Carlos?”…

Man, that hit deep; it’s exactly what I needed to hear.

That’s all it took truly for me to make the most important decision we must all make when we are lost in all this noise; the decision to change our perspective. So, here’s a few things I learned over the last 2 months or so:

1. Enough for who – this is arguably the most critical question we must ask ourselves. In the end, I was so caught up in trying to prove my point of view that I lost myself in an endless pursuit of worth not founded in truth; worth founded in pride and ego (amongst other things) vs in God and what He has to say about me.
2. Noise is what you make of it – we choose how much life and power we give to the things that distract us from moving forward. Eventually, we hit a crossroad at which a decision has to be made: we either stay in the noise or we choose to move past it.
3. You can’t do it alone – I needed those who sat and listened to me. Those who validated my feelings and allowed me to process what I needed to process. Yet, I also needed those who challenged me to move past it, to realize that whether I was right or wrong, it didn’t change the outcome and it was a waste of energy and effort. Both groups of people care about you, both are needed in order to help you see what you are not seeing and help you to silence the noise.

I’m sure this won’t be the first and last time that I experience having to come face to face with my fear of not being enough. So, that said, here’s to us making a commitment to silence the noise by knowing our worth, specially our worth in He who created us, by changing our perspective in order to see the bigger picture, and by choosing to not go at it alone and instead bring others with us in this journey of self-discovery we call life.

Remember, no matter what you may be going through, You Are Not Alone.