Anywhere you go these days; it is common to see people with music players like iphones blasting music into their ears. In fact, it seems like those of us who choose to listen to the world going on around us are becoming an anomaly. A report in The Hindu reports that teenage deafness is rising at alarming rates. For the full report please copy and paste this link into your URL bar when you have finished reading my blog.
http://www.thehindu.com/health/policy-and-issues/article579504.ece
I believe that the use of in-ear listening devices is a bigger problem than even this report indicates. Younger people seem not to have as much appreciation for the effects of their personal choices on their bodies. It is not until they are much older and already suffering from the ravages of their choices that they come to their senses and wish they could go back and make different choices.
There are, however, two even more perilous concerns about this habit of wearing these earphones and they are both present in the now at the time they are wearing these devices.
Firstly, not just teens but anyone who has music blasting loudly in their ears puts themselves in imminent danger as they are not fully aware of their surroundings. So many times I see people walking and even driving with these things turned up so loud that they cannot hear what is going on around them.
It is becoming far too common that people are getting into motor vehicle accidents both as drivers and pedestrians because they couldn’t hear or weren’t paying attention to their surroundings. There seems to be some kind of belief that if they can block out the outside world, no harm can come to them when in truth the exact opposite is true.
How can one expect to manage their lives effectively if they are blocking out important information like oncoming cars?
Secondly, and one of the factors I espouse in my books Embracing The Blend and Stamp Out Stress is that we need to regularly stop and listen to what is going on in our head. I believe that much of the basis for needing to wear earphones and having the music blasting loud is to eliminate the chance of hearing unpleasant thoughts in one’s head. Better to override than listen, right?
If we do not listen to the thoughts in our head, how can we possibly get the message these thoughts are trying to tell us. Sure, if we are in an emotionally challenging time in our lives, it can hurt to hear the thoughts going on in our head. But those thoughts are there for a reason. The subconscious mind is trying to protect you! It wants you to pay attention that something is wrong… and do something about it!
When we avoid listening to the thoughts in our head, they will push harder to be heard. Eventually, the mind will manifest problems in the body or undesirable events in our outside world to force us to listen. These can include diseases, accidents, relationship difficulties and more.
Why would we avoid listening to thoughts that can help us make our life work better when at some level we know that not listening will be very costly for us? It just doesn’t make sense does it? And yet we continually do it.
How many times have we heard people say “Why didn’t I listen?” after they have had an accident?
If we really want to make our lives work best for us, one of the first things we need to do is accept that the thoughts in our heads cannot hurt us and in fact have important messages for us. All we have to do is learn how to work with them.
I am very fond of music. I would be the last person to criticize people for their love of music. I do think though that people need to think more consciously about how much they are causing damage to themselves both physically and emotionally by turning the music up so loud.
I ask you please to turn the music down and have a listen to your life!
In service
Monty
PS. If you want to know more about how to manage and eliminate undesirable thoughts in your head, please check out my book Stamp Out Stress.
Samples of the two related visualizations will be available on www.stampoutstress.net soon.
Monty Clayton Ritchings is author of Embracing The Blend and Stamp Out Stress as well as numerous e-books.
His website is: www.montyritchings.com