The noise isn't the problem
Clarity doesn't come from slowing down. It comes from showing up.
I woke up this morning with a simple thought: we’re all swimming in noise right now and the advice is always the same. Slow down. Simplify. Log off. But what if it’s backwards? What if that’s not actually addressing the problem?
What if the answer isn’t to unplug and shut out information, but to go deeper into your own life until the noise just… stops being so loud.
About an hour later, I was in an Uber on the way to the airport. It was early and the sun was just coming up. The last thing I wanted to do was talk.
But the driver was chipper with an Australian accent and I could tell he wanted to chat. Then that thought came back to me: an interesting life makes conversation with people, it doesn’t scroll on a phone in the back of a car.
So I asked: where are you from? How did you end up here?
The conversation took off. We talked the whole 30 minutes and got surprisingly personal. He shared that he'd been feeling lonely and we ended up talking about community, faith, and the choices he was working through. At the end he said, “thank you for this conversation, I really needed it.”
My day was made before 7:30am.
An interesting life is having enough going on that it starts to give you clarity and a natural filter for the noise.
Of the things you care about, the things you like, what you believe and what you don’t, what aligns and what doesn’t. Enough real conversations happening in your life, back and forth, that get you to think, speak, hear yourself respond, force you to respond. Moments outside of reading or watching other people live that get you to feel real responses. Nervousness, excitement, danger, problem solving.
When this happens, things start to become clear. What you stand for. What’s interesting to you. So when you encounter the noise: online, in the media, in your feed, you already know what to cut out and what to welcome in. Not because you’ve thought hard about it, but because you’re aligned and oriented. Things become less noisy not because there’s less of it, but because you’re naturally filtering without even noticing.
I firmly believe the noise isn’t solved by silence or retracting. It’s solved by having enough real life moments that the noise is easily spotted and has nowhere to land.
Over the past few years I’ve felt this firsthand. It’s the clearest and most steady I’ve ever felt. Naturally unfollowing/removing what doesn’t feel right and letting go of what feels like clutter. Not because I planned to, but because I finally just recognize it in real time. A mental refresh that happened on its own, driven by lived experiences and conversations that keep pulling me out of my comfort zone and into thinking that actually feels like me.
Now when something doesn’t light me up, the noise removal is easy and unemotional. And when something does, I know I want more of it. The filter just works. This kind of clarity isn’t manufactured. You have to live your way into it.
So how do we actually get there?
A great question to ask is “when did I last feel something real?”
When did something make me nervous in a good way? When did a conversation push me somewhere I didn’t expect to go? When did I have a problem that was actually mine to solve?
If the answers hard to come by… that might be the signal.
Next up is just to keep it simple. Think about things already in motion. Something you’re already in the middle of that hasn’t resolved yet. A conversation worth finishing. Commitment you made that now requires you to show up. A problem needing solved. Something with an uncertain outcome that involves you specifically.
I don’t think an interesting life is built in big gestures. It accumulates in small moments where we’re actually present, actually participating, actually looking up from our screens, actually responding. Those moments compound.
And after enough of them, we start to get to know ourselves because it came from experience, not from observation of others where we think “huh, could that be me?!”
That’s what makes the noise quiet down. Not less of it… just more of you.
Tables Ready is written to be an open conversation with my readers so I can get to know you like you’re getting to know me. If this sparked something, I’d love to hear about it in the comments —
Cheers!
Meg
10x yes to this!!!!!