Now those are the kinds of sounds worth listening to

Is there nothing reliable in what the world says anymore?

Do lies and not truth prevail in our lands?

Possibly. To say that everything we hear a complete fabrication, that may be a bit extreme. And claiming the total disappearance of shared objective standards for truth is probably an exaggeration.

In my experience, a more useful filter to experience the world is accepting that almost everything is noise.

Start from there. Assume the vast majority of the information that floods your senses on an hourly basis an unwanted, unpleasant and disruptive sound that won’t add value to your life.

Not in an angry, paranoid or aggressive way, more like a water off a duck’s back kind of way.

This assumption makes it significantly easier to set boundaries and stay focused on what matters most.

Think of it this way. Have you ever watched someone put on a pair of noise cancelling headphones for the first time?

It’s powerful. You literally see the peace wash over them like a soothing wave. People say this technology is a revelation. A modern survival tool for tuning out constant drone of living.

Whether they’re riding on an airplane, commuting on the subway, walking down the street, sitting in an office, or trying to fall asleep with two screaming toddlers down the hall, they simply switch on the quiet and finally feel themselves breathe and think again. Ahhhh.

That’s the peace available when your baseline assumption is, almost everything is noise.

After all, mankind has produced more information in the past decade than in it has in the previous five thousand years. We live in a time of information, inspiration and opinion overload. And if we want to lower our experience of anxiety, become calmer and focus on our own fulfillment, then we have to start practicing selective indifference.

Being discerning enough not to dwell on meaningless matters and conserving our best energy for the efforts that will have the highest impact on our lives.

The biggest upside to this skill is, once you get really good at it, tuning out becomes second nature. It’s like muscle memory. You train your brain to switch on its own noise cancelling headphones at a moment’s notice.

My local bodega is the perfect training ground for my practice of selective indifference. Next to the front door is a rack with the current issues of the three most popular newspapers in the country. Customers can’t not pass it on the way out of the store.

But I never look at them. Zero eye contact.

Because my baseline assumption is that all the headlines, pictures, words and images are just exaggerated falsehoods that are trying to scare me. It’s more toxic waste pumped into the collective consciousness by dinosaur publications that are no longer worth our trust or attention.

My brain refuses to allow that penetrate my energetic or intellectual boundaries.

Now, this may sound obsessive, compulsive or even paranoid, but for me, even that three seconds of exposure isn’t worth the cumulative toll it takes on my psyche over time.

Remember, almost everything is noise. Most of what you hear is an unwanted, unpleasant and disruptive sound that doesn’t add value to your life.

Once you learn to tune that out, it’s amazing what kinds of beautiful music floats to the surface.

Hearing yourself breathe and think and dream and wonder, now those are the kinds of sounds worth listening to.

What might you accomplish with a clearer signal?