I love music. I love listening to the radio in my car and jamming out. If you pass me on the street, you just might witness me with my hands in the air, rocking to some tunes. My kids get a little embarrassed, so I am a little more flamboyant when I am alone. I try to make it count as a workout…at least for my abs. Why waste time and perfectly good music?

I have two sets of preset stations on my car radio. I set these up, but I didn’t know what I was doing and I don’t know how to change them. One set is full of top 40 type stations. The second set has about three repeats from set one and then country stations. I prefer the second set….my kids like the first set. They haven’t matured into an appreciation for country music yet. There’s time….

Lately, no matter what station I chose, it has been annoying. The same songs are played over and over and over. I know there are more than ten songs out there worth listening to.  My sister pointed me to an all day comedy station the other day. That was a welcome relief for a few weeks….until they started playing reruns as well. It might be funny the first time, but the second time you hear a comedy sketch….not so much. I do like the ‘hot pocket’ guy every time, and Louis Black..but other than that I get bored.

After browsing through all my music stations and the comedy station and finding nothing good on, I actually turned off my radio the other day. I know! It was actually quiet in my car. I breathed a deep sigh of relief and embraced the silence for a while. It didn’t take long for me to realize that it wasn’t actually silent in my car. With the radio off, I could now hear all the little flaws in my car. There was a strange whirl bumping sound in my dash board, my windows let in way too much air, there was something rolling around in the back of the car, and a clicking sound from somewhere I could not place. The silence started to stress me out. I have had many cars that were junkers. They nickel and dimed us to death! I really hate car trouble!!  I turned the radio back on.

As I was talking to my dad this evening, I told him about my car incident. I realized that it was a pretty good description of my life. I know I am not alone in this either. I keep my life very ‘loud’ and full of stuff. Sometimes it is so loud that I miss out on the softer, quieter things that really could use my attention. The big problems tend to overpower the smaller ones until the small ones grow into big ones. If I could turn down the volume on my life and listen to the little things before they get big….things might be a bit easier. I might be able to stop some problems before they happen.

I’m really not sure how to turn down the volume on my life, but I think it may have something to do with meditation, prayer, and listening. It might also have to do with actually staying out of my car. I drive around way too much…cause I said so.

photo credit: http://www.funnyanimalpictures.net/data/media/1/listening_to_the_radio.jpg