Have you ever go to a concert or a seminar? What do you usually notice about that event? I’m sure that the first thing you’ll notice will be the visual of the event such as the stage, the chair setup, the multimedia that announce the events, the lighting. Then, when the time comes, you’ll notice the personnel on stage. They should be the ones that you have expected to be on the stage. And then it could be something else. and the last that you will notice is the sound. Most of the time people don’t pay a lot of attention with the sound. As long as it’s comfortable and normal it will be fine. Right? I’m helping as sound system operator in my church. The main task that I need to do is to mix the sound that comes to the mixer and mix it so that it sounds good. Most people will only notice what they can hear, but what they don’t know is that not all sound created equal. some noise will be lower, and others will be louder so that it will produce a balance for the music. Likewise, in our lives, we receive a lot of sound coming to our lives. some are good, some are bad, and probably some will be neutral. We need to mix it well, so that it will be good for our wellbeing and for others as well. We can’t control what kind of sound we received, for example the praises, bad words, or other messages from other people. But we have the option to tune out the bad noises and tune in to the sound that build us up.
Most of the time we are willing to pay some money to listen to a concert, to watch a movie, or to watch a live show. But why do we let the negative voices replayed over and over again in out mind? We only have limited time in a day. No one knows what will happen. It can be good or bad. Sometimes when bad things happened to me, even after some time, I still replay the bad incident in my head over and over again, thinking it will get better over time, but it’s not. It’s only making things worse. Just like a bad incident can come at any time, we can tune out or mute that out from our mind and create different mixing of your music. There are 3 steps that you can do to ensure the most to create your own mixing.
1. Select the noise/sound that you want to hear.
The image that I use in this blog is a sound mixer. Each column represent the volume for 1 input. It can be mic or instrument. Hearing one at a time, sometime makes it not so nice. But by combining the sound together, it makes the music better. Likewise in our live, we can think that every voice/noise that try to come to our lives will be represented by one column. You have the control of turning the volume up down or mute the sound on your mind. Don’t be too overwhelmed when you imagine that there are a lot of noises around you. What you need to do is to pick the ones that you want to listen clearly and mute the other noises. Just keep in mind that when you mixed your own level, you are making the sound complement each other. It doesn’t mean that every sound will have the same level. Some will be louder, and some will be quieter.
What kind of sound that you are listening right now? A lot of messages are trying to enter your mixer. Are you mixing the right sound? What you hear, read, watched will influence your thinking and behaviour. You need to be intentional in what you receiving so that it will help you to be better person. The good sound in your life will build you up instead of tearing you down.
2. Adjust the noise level
Every sound is not created equal. some will be louder, some other s are softer. Our task is to balance them out so that you can put extra emphasis on those subtle tone in the music. For example, in upbeat music, you want the drum beat to be louder, but not too loud so that you can’t hear the melody. or when the time comes for a guitar solo, you don’t want other sound to compete so that you can really hear tune by tune. Likewise, adjust the sound level that come to your life. Often times we put emphasis on wrong things. We turn up the volume of those noise that told us the bad thing such as “you will never do it”, “You never do anything useful”, etc. and we tune down those good ones. I believe that it is more common in Asian culture. Our parents, even us, will not say congrats on the accomplishment that we’ve done, but we are making sure the other person knows when they made a mistake.
Sometimes, you don’t have control on those sound that come to your life, but you have control on what you will absorb. we have limited time, don’t spend more time in listening to your own bad noise. Adjust the noise/mute out the noise and add more positive noise in your life. I’m not advocating to select the good noise of your choice, but to select the true good sound for you. In my college, I took a music lesson, the instructor told me a good analogy about life. He said that piano is so much like our life, there are whites and blacks (positive and negative experiences), don’t focus in one thing only, but combine those experiences. By combining them, you’ll create beautiful music. In music, because of these differences, we hear a beautiful jazz music.
3. Broadcast it to other people
Just like a sound mixer, all those adjustments that you made, will be eventually broadcasted to others. What kind of sound are you producing? Are you creating good music? Remember your voice or noise that you generated will be based on what you let in to your mind. It will be better to get the truth, filter the bad, and then give it to others. You can make different experience for others by voicing out extra emphasis on the good experience. By doing this, you’re making your life and others better. We’re not individual person, we are social. By making other’s better, we make ourselves better too.
It doesn’t take much effort to receive bad sound. It will come free to your life. But it takes more effort to tune in to good sound. Make the intention to build you up by accepting the good and the bad and make a good balance, so that you’ll be able to broadcast better sound for other people to do that. When you do that, you’ll be hearing more good things happening in the world. It is hard, but it’s possible. remind yourself that you are here for a reason. Make the experience count. Keep this in mind, everything you do will give impact for other people. What kind of impact do you want to leave? What kind of legacy do you want to make?
How do you filter out the bad noise from your life? I’d love to hear from you.
Hebrews 13: 2 – “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.”
