Confronting What I Didn't Want to Admit About Myself

Composed by: Sr. Catalina Rosa

I realized about two months ago, while brainstorming how I would embark on prayer, fasting, and almsgiving this Lent, that, for various reasons, my past years' Lenten practices of food sacrifice and social media sacrifice likely wouldn't have the same effect on me this year.

I also realized at that time that one daily comfort of mine on whose reliance I had never thought of addressing (let alone addressed), ever, is my automatic reflex to listen to music that I could listen to for free on my smartphone with earbuds while walking about or riding public transportation. Since I have an affinity for several genres of music, it's very easy for me to use this habit as a way of clinging onto comfort. Am I upset? Am I tired? Am I impatient? Let me find what piece of music would soothe me just the way I want to be soothed right now!

This habit had become an emotional crutch for me.

So, I decided that this Lent, I would either listen only to religious choral music, or listen to nothing at all, while walking about or riding public transportation in order to commute or run errands.

I'm writing this blog entry with Easter Sunday only a little over two weeks away. So far since Ash Wednesday, I've usually found myself electing to listen to no music at all, although I've still worn my earbuds for the purposes of detracting attention from strangers.

 I've realized the following about myself:

 (1) I'm frightened whenever I could overhear precisely the unsavory words a stranger could say to me as I walk by, or sit nearby on public transportation. If I'm playing music softly enough for me to, say, hear a car honking but still loudly enough for me not to hear those words clearly, it's much easier to ignore the stranger and feel comfortable.

(2) Also, I need to learn to be patient whenever I'm sitting on public transportation and listening to someone talking loudly, or someone playing music from a smartphone without any earbuds or headphones plugged into it, or even the whirring of engines coupled with the noise of traffic.

(3) I struggle with realizing I cannot let my surroundings control my inner peace. When riding public transportation or even walking in downtown urban streets near my workplace during rush hour, it's already easy for other non-aural senses to be assaulted: vision in terms of litter, in terms of seeing unsightly sights, in terms of human excrement on the sidewalks, in terms of overweight pigeons waddling and nibbling on fried chicken bones and fries; touch in terms of walking on irregular sidewalks or even sitting on a bus that gets jarred easily every time it rolls over a pothole; smell in terms of trash and human excrement. Listening to any music that I chose had become a way for me to make it easy to ignore these uncomfortable elements in my surroundings. Forcing myself to listen either to nothing or only to a specific type of music on my earbuds helped me learn how to acknowledge that it's possible to find an inner peace amidst any environment outside me.

(4) Did I say I need to learn to be patient? I mean, this morning, I was groggy, and one person was talking on the phone loudly while sitting behind me, and another person was having a conversation on speakerphone. Speakerphone! Would you believe it? Oh, and the traffic was bad! Ugh. Oh, right--I need to learn to be patient.

I had thought my Lenten sacrifice would lead me to become more comfortable with silence. In some ways, it has. What I hadn't expected to experience, however, was an exercise in patience with others, acceptance of conditions around me that I cannot change, and even growing in trust in God to help me get out of instances of discomfort--or, even more, to be with me in the midst of discomfort.

I also have realized how I still struggle with control. I had thought, rather foolishly, that I had addressed my issues with control. Oh, I know that I can only earn so much money, not only through my own situation but also through friends and acquaintances who struggle with underemployment or unemployment. Oh, I know that relationships with the other people in my life cannot be controlled entirely by me, because I can control only my own behavior. Oh, I know that in a workplace, I can only do so much to rectify problems and that I'm not going to save systematic issues alone.  Oh, I know I'm limited in what I can do recreationally due to financial, logistical, and even health-related constraints.

But, somehow, in my habit of listening to music on earbuds daily for years, I had somehow thought that, for at least a few hours a day, I could control my environment by pumping into my ears only what I want to hear while going out and about.

It hasn't been pleasant to acknowledge this problem within myself.

I cannot control my environment. All that I can control are my thoughts, words, and actions. Music, live or recorded, isn't bad. However, I had falsely let myself slip into a reliance on recorded music to avoid addressing the reality that whenever I walk or ride to my daily goings-on, I also must be aware that even that routine isn't entirely within my control, just like the other areas of my life that I already had known for a long time aren't entirely within my control.

I'm looking forward to using my daily commute once more as a way to listen to various types of music, familiar and unfamiliar, come Easter.

I'm also now hoping that, by God's grace, this habit won't be a way of avoiding an opportunity to address my impatience and fear--but, instead, a way of exposing myself to beauty.

I needed this Lent to let God help me reset my approach to this habit. For that, I'm grateful.

I'm even looking forward to see what other opportunities may arise in my future to grow. Sweet!