I've spent most of my life "being quiet". Reserved. Safe. On the volume scale of 1-11, maybe a comfortable 4. Maybe 5. Enough to get by. Enough to satisfy. But not as loud as I could be. Not as loud as I can get.
Why? I don't know. I think because quiet is safe. Quiet takes no risks. Risk nothing, lose nothing. (That's how the saying goes, right?) There was a period--a very long period--where I didn't even realize I was being quiet. If asked, I would have told you my 5's were easy 9's, maybe 10's, and the thought of being louder was as foreign to me as were the successes of life that seemed to slipp through my grasp for frustratingly inexplicable reasons.
Quite some time ago, I gained the awareness this was a lie, and now I live at healthier 7's and occasional 8's, peaking my head sometimes into the 9 stratosphere. Long gone are the days where ignorance keeps me from realizing how far away from the 10's I am. And yet... why am I still not there? If I know it exists, what keeps me from living there?
Let me use another comparison to explain this struggle o' mine. Paul talks about runners in a race, but he emphasizes the goal is to win the race. Competing has its place. Finishing is good, too. But winning is the goal. I like to think I've allowed myself to be content to simply compete. So what if I finish 12th? I still finished, right? Okay, so I've realized that's not the healthiest outlook, and I'm doing better now. Sure, I slowed down there at the end, but I got 3rd or 4th place! That's pretty good, right?
This type of thinking--really, this type of living--robs me of the kind of fulfilled, peace-ridden, top-of-the-line "10" life I could have. What would life be like if I lived like that? What could I accomplish?
I like to think I'm a pretty critically-minded person. In application, this helps me identify areas of personal growth. I like to sing. I think I'm decent at it. Maybe I'm good (/God you know I'm good/). During a recent sing-in-the-car-by-myself session, a song came on (don't ask me what it was; I don't remember), and the song had a pretty intense, loud (yelling?) part in it. Rather than matching the volume and intensity of the singer in this song, I did sort of a whisper yell. This is just how I've always sung loud parts. Part of this (bad) habit likely came from years of living in apartment buildings with thin walls, and, wanting to be a considerate neighbor (though not enough to not sing in the shower), I made sure to keep my volume below a certain level. But here I was in my car, by myself. Who was I being quiet for? Why wasn't I screaming out this part of the song? Don't I love to sing? Wasn't this part or the song written to be screamed? (Now that I think about it, this might have been the "Hey, Dad" section of Filter's "Take a Picture".)
So I screamed it out. The way it was meant to be sung. Because it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks. This song was for me, and I can sing however I want. And why wouldn't I want to sing it to the fullest degree possible?
I'm so tired of being quiet. I have so much inside of me waiting to let loose. This life is too short to keep it all inside. To be quiet! A little noise and disruption is worth the unfettered end of an emptied life, of that first place medal. I'd rather meet my Creator, having emptied it all for Him, screamed it out, not stayed quiet, than have Him ask me why I buried some of it.
I'm trying. I screamed out (coincidentally) Switchfoot's "Dare you to Move" a little too close to quiet hours (spoil alert: I'm still in apartment living) tonight. I'll finish strong with this dang bachelor's degree I never got around to. And then you wait, world. You'll see what I'm capable of. I'll show you the things God put inside of me. Maybe you'll meet my Mis-Fits. Whatever the end, I will not be quiet.
