The less I take in from the outside, the more I feel from within.
Sometimes, when the world feels too heavy, I close my ears. I don’t do it to escape completely, nor do I do it out of defiance. I do it because there are moments when my brain feels like a sponge that has soaked up too much information. There are tons of distractions, so many shallow conversations and too much of everything that doesn’t matter. So I press my palms against the sides of my head and in a short second, the world shuts out, just enough to make space for myself again.
We take in so much information without realising it. The endless stream of updates from screens and voices, the chaos and traffic, the need to fill our time to do something productive, it all seeps in.
My mind, eager to stay alert and productive at all times, gathers it all without discrimination. It doesn’t matter if it’s useful or useless, urgent or irrelevant. It collects everything, and when the load becomes too much, I lose sight of the things that truly deserve my attention. The music in the background just floods my brain with signals, giving me an illusion that I’m truly listening, but I have no idea what song is playing. The important gets buried under the trivial, like a whisper swallowed by thunder in the distant sky.
That’s when I close my ears. Because when I do, I give my brain a chance to slow down. Not everything deserves an entry. Focus isn’t about pushing through the noise; it’s about choosing what to let in. It’s about drawing a boundary around my mental space and saying, This belongs here, and this doesn’t. Closing my ears feels like waking up a gatekeeper inside me, one who finally dares to ask each thought if it’s useful or just clutter in disguise.
In that moment when I shut out all the noise, there are glimpses where I can see what I truly want. There’s a voice that doesn’t demand or even want to be noticed, so it’s really easy to forget that it exists in a world that screams LOUD! But when the excess has been shut out, I can hear it, reminding me of what matters, or where I go, or who I am beneath all my choices.
It makes me realise that less can be a gift. We’re taught to chase after more, be it information, opinions or updates, to stay on top of everything. But the truth is that it doesn’t always make us richer. Sometimes, it leaves us scattered, half present and unable to discern the meaningful from the meaningless. Closing my ears is my way of choosing less so I can feel more, so that I can sense myself fully, from the inside out, without interference.
And so, it has become a ritual of returning. I’m sure it looks concerning from the outside, but from the inside, it feels peaceful. Every time I’m overwhelmed, I tell myself that I have permission to shut it out. I don’t have to absorb it all. I don’t have to carry every sound that comes my way. I can close my ears and, in that act, open a door back to myself.
Sometimes, to focus on what truly matters, we don’t need to add more.
We just need to let less in.
CtrlAltGrow is my passion project to bring to life all the little creativity I have in my head. All my work, the podcast & my blogs, will be part of this library of thoughts.
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