My loudest voice is the inner one.
It has been chirping my
whole life, but only recently has it climbed up on the stage with me and stepped into the spotlight.
My inner voice takes on
a shit ton of roles. Sometimes it is the disciplinarian telling me to get my
big ass out of bed and get it done. Sometimes it is the wise man, although I am
still not entirely convinced he knows what the hell he is talking about. More
and more, it has become the voice of experience. A voice that has made enough
mistakes to recognize them before making them again.
Sometimes that
voice comes from heaven. I hear my parents in it. Words and lessons I
ignored when they were standing in front of me have somehow become louder after
they left the building.
More often than not,
though, the inner voice is my conscience. It steers me toward integrity and
honesty. It reminds me that doing the right thing and doing the easy thing
don't always share the same road.
But
then there is the other voice.
When my inner voice gets
pissed off and starts flirting with mischievous ideas, the battle begins. I
picture that scene in Animal
House when Larry “Pinto” Kroger has the little angel on one shoulder
and the devil on the other, each giving him advice on what he should do next.
My version has been playing for sixty years. The costumes have changed and the
arguments have gotten a little more sophisticated, but those two bastards are
still sitting on my shoulders.
…And
I'm not sure I want either one to disappear.
The disciplinarian has
value. So does the wise man. Experience certainly does. My conscience keeps me
pointed toward the man I need to be. The voices from heaven remind me where I
came from and even that mischievous son of a bitch serves a purpose. He keeps
me from becoming too careful, too predictable and too old before my time.
Maybe wisdom isn't
finally discovering which voice is right. Maybe wisdom is realizing that I
get to decide which voice gets the microphone.
That is the
challenge going forward. Listen to all of them. Learn from all of them and
argue with a couple of them. Laugh with them, but understand that when the
argument is over, I
choose the louder voice.
I
wrote these numbers on the bottom of today's Chalkboard:
143 days until 2027.
508 days until 2028.
874 days until 2029.
1,239
days until 2030.
I have spent my
life thinking of those years as somewhere far in the distant future. Put them
into days and suddenly they don't look very far away.
There will
come a day when forward isn't forward anymore, and when that day comes, all
those voices that have followed me through life…
…the
disciplinarian, the wise man, experience, conscience, heaven, and that
mischievous bastard sitting on my shoulder will finally go quiet.
What will
remain is the life I lived after listening to them and the final
impression will be decided by which voice I chose to make the loudest.
Choose your louder voice you Chalkheads. Don’t listen to the mealy mouth and make sure the voice
of gusto and astonishment get a word in today. The clock is running and that is the reason to live louder, not quieter.
