A Lesson from a Bear and a Creek
A couple of weeks ago I took a trip to my favorite forest spot to do some mushroom hunting.
The forest in this area has a thick green canopy all throughout the summer, and there's a gorgeous rushing creek that animates the landscape, "shushing" at you continuously as you walk up the trail.
The constant sound of the water rushing over the rocks has a very calming effect on my body and mind.
But at times, it's so dominant that it can also drown out the sounds coming from the rest of the forest.
On this particular day, I had an inkling to climb down a small hill and go off trail to explore an area close by the rushing creek.
When I came to the spot, I was so excited that I followed that inkling, because I found a cluster of black trumpet mushrooms, an old man of the woods mushroom, and a small sourwood tree, from which I took a small, sour snack.
Once I felt satisfied with my explorations, I turned and headed back toward the trail to make my way back home to little miss Maggie.
Right as I crested the small hill, I heard the sound of frantic crashing through the brush, just ahead of where I was standing.
My alarm bells immediately went off and I looked up to see a small bear wildly running for its life away from me.
And I've gotta say, I was very thankful that it was running away from and not toward me. I had no idea bears could run that fast!
I didn't think of this right away, because I had to work a little to calm my nervous system back down after that experience, but I had absolutely no idea that a bear was there, because I couldn't hear anything over the sound of the rushing creek.
And bears don't tip toe. The couple of times I've heard them making their way through the forest, there's been a lot of crashing and crunching involved.
This got me thinking a lot about persistent noise, and its ability to drown out the information around me.
Some continuous sounds, at the right time, can be a good thing — like my sound machine that helps me sleep at night. Or even the creek, when I need help calming my nerves.
But other times, non-stop noise can really take away from life experience — like the traffic I hear continuously, at all hours of the day, that dampens the sounds of the crickets, birds and — well, not really the cicadas, because those critters are loud, but you get the point.
Or what about the constant noise streaming at us all day every day from the news, or social media, or podcasts?! Spending multiple hours every day listening to others talk, drowns out our ability to hear ourselves — our emotions, feelings, or personal insights.
I decided last week to take a break from listening to all of the digital external noise.
I mean, I haven't actually paid attention to the news in 20 years. I attempted to follow mainstream media when I was younger, because people tried to convince me that not paying attention to the news was irresponsible, but it simply just made me feel worse than I already felt, so I gave it up and I haven't ever regretted that decision.
I also quit Instagram and Facebook three years ago and I’ve remained very grateful to myself for making that decision. I was super addicted to Instagram and I got to a point where I realized that it was greatly affecting the quality of my life.
I have, however, spent a lot of time listening to others over YouTube and podcasts, and while some of that is helpful, too much of it simply turns into mindless persistent noise that ends up dampening our life experiences.
It’s only been a week now, but I've gotten so much out of this break that there's no way I can ever return to my old mindless habits. The thought of spending multiple hours a day listening to other people talk, rather than giving myself space to think and work through new ideas, now feels completely stifling to me.
There are still a couple of YouTube channels I’ll continue watching, as they're always inspiring and uplifting, but I will only be watching other videos if I'm looking for something specific. The same thing goes for podcasts, as well.
I know it’s a little ironic talking about pulling back from watching YouTube, in a YouTube video, but I really do think it would benefit everyone to more carefully and mindfully decide where to place their attention.
I'm realizing now that I wasn't properly respecting myself, my time, or my life experience before.
But that wasn't intentional. I had simply just developed bad habits with technology that was designed to be addicting.
This world-wide addiction is pretty unfortunate for the human race.
I believe that everyone inherently has the potential to add value to the world, but whether that potential is expressed or not depends on each individual's decisions and actions.
And our phones — our little masters of distraction — hold a lot of us back from being the best versions or ourselves that we can be.
So for me, I've decided to move forward in a more conscious way — I'm no longer allowing the endless stream of digital noise to distract me from what's truly important to me — becoming the best version of me that I can be, and offering value to the world in my own unique way.
As lovely as it is to sit next to a creek, and allow the sound to drown out all the noise around me, doing that all day every day would cause me to miss out on everything else that life has to offer.
Hi, I’m Kristen!
I envision a world where you and I rediscover what it is to be human, through connection with ourselves, each other and the natural world around us.