60 Weeks to 60 — Week 7: Turn off the Radio

I’m seven weeks into this 60 week challenge and realize that the assignments I am giving myself fall into two categories — those that require me to “do” something, and those that require me to “not do” something. They are both equally challenging because they force me to break well worn patterns.

This week my challenge involves not doing something — not turning on the radio. Instead, I will replace it with silence.

One could say that I am addicted to the radio… My alarm clock is set to our local public radio station, so that I wake up to the news. I listen as I eat breakfast and get ready for work, whenever I’m in the car, when making dinner, doing chores, and before I go to sleep. I listen to National Public Radio so much that I can tell the time of day by noting what program is on, and I sometimes plan my activities around listening to specific programs, such as This American Life and Fresh Air. The program hosts feel like personal friends, and I know the frequent sponsors by name.

This doesn’t mean that I always enjoy listening… In many cases the stories keep me informed and help me understand what’s happening in the world. However, much of the time it is just background noise. And, as we all know, the headline news, which is repeated over and over again at the top of the hour, is often horribly disturbing.

So, this week, I will do a radio fast. My mornings, commutes, and evenings will not have a background soundtrack of the radio news, and I won’t replace the news with music or TV. Just like my social media fast a few weeks ago, I anticipate that the first day or so will be challenging, but that I will develop new patterns that I might enjoy more, and that I will return with a fresh relationship to the news. It will be interesting to see how often I reflexively walk over to turn on the radio, how long it takes to extinguish that habit, and what happens when I am bathed in silence. I will post my reflections below.

My goals are to determine:

• What aspects of the radio news will I miss?
• Will I feel out of touch with what is happening in the world?
• What will fill my mind when it is not filled with the radio news?

_______________________

Reflections on my week without the radio:

• The first morning, I have already walked to the radio several times before reminding myself not to turn it on. Since I’m the only one home today, it feels very very quiet… I really want to turn on the radio. This is hard. :)
• The most interesting silence is in the car. It is such a reflex to turn on the news when I’m driving. Without the radio on, I was tempted to make phone calls to fill the silence. That too, is a reflex… By driving in silence, I have been much more aware of my surroundings, including the sounds outside, the drivers in other cars, and my own thoughts and feelings.
• I realized that there are so many things in our lives that we do reflexively — turning on the radio is just one of hundreds of small actions that we don’t think about each day.
• The week without the radio is over, and I decided to keep it off. That’s actually a surprise to me. I thought that I would be happy to turn it on again once my radio-fast was over… I got up this morning, made a cup of tea, and thought about turning on the radio. After a few seconds of reflection, I consciously decided to keep it off. I had already read the news headlines on my phone, and felt up to date on the major events in the world, most of which were pretty depressing… As a longtime supporter of public radio, I’m sure I’ll turn it on again. At that time, it will be by choice, not habit.
• In summary, I didn’t miss the background noise of radio news. Although I did miss specific programs, such as This American Life, I know that I can easily catch up on those episodes at my convenience. I did not feel out of touch with what is happening in the world. Each day I read the news, and kept up with breaking new on Twitter. Finally, the silence was very refreshing. My mind felt much less cluttered and, in general, I felt much more calm.