Listening Beyond The Noises

I have to make a heart-breaking decision. I have to...ahem...excuse me [*wipes tears from eyes*]. Okay. As I was saying...I have to...get rid of my house plants. After collecting all these house plants from Lowe's from the clearance section and bringing them [close to] back to life, I now have to part with my babies.

Okay, so maybe the decision isn't too heart-breaking. While I don't like having to get rid of this collection of house plants, I know that I have to. Why? Because I realized that I've sent so much energy on house plants that I spent almost NO energy on growing food. I could have had a back deck full of edible plants. Instead, I have a back deck that's littered with plants that nobody could eat. Besides, these once-dying plants are so slow to rejuvenate that I'm wondering if it's even worth having them around.

This is what happened: I got caught up in the noise for house plants. Before, I had no interest in them. Then I started getting interested in succulents...which led to being interested in general house plants...which led to being impulsive with buying dollar plants from the clearance section...which led to totally neglecting my original vision of growing food for my family and for others. I consider myself an "expert" gardener with all the gardening answers, and instead of using that expertise in growing food, I used it to rejuvenate plants that no one could eat.

So now that I realized that I have spent my energy on the wrong things, I'm going to gladly correct it. And it actually feels good to make the corrections, to re-focus my energy to what's truly important to me. No, I don't like the idea of throwing away stuff that I spent money on, but sometimes you have to accept losses in your life so that you could move on. I could do my best to save these plants, but doing so would still require my energy, the energy that could be spent on growing food.

Right now, you're spending your energy on the wrong things. How did that happen? Because of all the noise you hear. There's another cool thing to buy. There's another job opening. There's another business opportunity. There's another place to visit. There's another conference to attend. There's another class to enroll in. All of these "anothers" are all noise that distract you from what's truly important to you. When you get caught up in the noise, then new things become important. The more caught up in the noise you are, the more "important" things you'll get into -- and eventually, you'd be taken away from what was originally important to you.

In a previous article, I talked about saying "No" more often. When you keep saying "Yes," then you'll keep making commitments. The more commitments you make, the less time you have for things that are really important. Remember that there would always be "another" thing to get involved in, but that "another thing" is simply noise. There is noise all around us and we can't allow ourselves to get caught up in it.

Imagine going to Costco (or Sam's Club, BJ's, or some other warehouse store) for one item (bulk item, that is) and walking out with several items, several subscriptions, and an appointment for a new HVAC system to be installed in your house. What happened? Your biggest mistake was letting sales reps get your attention. You should have stayed focused on that one item, but instead, you allowed yourself to get caught up in the noise. Now you have severe buyer's regret -- and you didn't even get the item that you came for! And how are you going to explain to your spouse that you're having a perfectly good HVAC system replaced for no good reason?

Be aware that there is noise all around you, and you don't have to listen to everything. Do you know that right now, there are thousands of different noises around you, even the ones that you can't hear. Just imagine if you could hear every single thing, everything from a roach running on the floor to a high-frequency sound coming somewhere from space. You would lose your mind! So, your brain is designed to not process every sound that's around so that you won't go insane. In the same way, you have to learn to not pay attention to every opportunity that's thrown at you, because believe me, you will ALWAYS see a new opportunity for something until the day you leave this earth.

Are you familiar with the term "know your role"? What it means is to know your position, and all positions come with ONLY a few specific tasks. On the job, your role may be a cashier: your main task is to make purchase transactions, not to unload trucks and re-stock shelves. In sports, your role may be a goalie: your main job is to keep the ball from going into the goal, not to run out in the field kicking the ball like your other teammates. In life, you were designated a particular role to play. Don't get caught up in doing everything that you could think of. Just focus on your role, and you will get more stuff accomplished.

I think about a Bible passage that says, "Look straight ahead, and fix your eyes on what lies before you. Mark out a straight path for your feet; stay on the safe path. Don't get sidetracked" (Proverbs 4:25-27 NLT). The passage was more focused on avoiding corruption than on anything else, but the idea is that in this life, evil is more prevalent than good. It's easy to be influenced to do wrong because it is all over the place, but the good things are harder to find, so hard that you need to FOCUS so much on wanting to do good that it would be like walking on a narrow pathway. In the same way, the worthy things in this life are harder to see and harder to listen to, which means you need to be extra FOCUSED on those worthy things so that you won't get sidetracked.

Wanting to get healthy is a worthy thing. Being lazy is not, but it's more prevalent than healthy living. Wanting to raise your kids right is a worthy thing. Letting other people raise them is not, but it's more prevalent than being your own kids' leader. Staying faithful to one spouse is a worthy thing. "Messing around" is not, but it's more prevalent than a faithful marriage. There are few things in this life that are worthy of your attention, and these are the things to focus on and not get caught up in everything else.

Listen past all the noise that you hear so you could stay on the path that was given to you.