Recently, I realized that all the songs that I was once obsessed with and couldn’t get enough of were starting to become the songs I avoided listening to, in fear that I would experience more annoyance rather than enjoyment. Music is something that I believe I, and a lot of other people I know, tend to overplay and not even notice. It is a form of entertainment for the most part and many people like to put their favorite songs in a playlist and play the music whenever they do work, exercise, walk between classes, and even when they sleep. It’s become this commodity that people can’t spend even a day without. I think could go without water for longer than I can go without music at this point.
However, I think it’s become detrimental to constantly flood your mind with lyrics that essentially help you avoid whatever you need to address. Whether it’s a homework assignment, important conversations you need to have, or healing from past experiences, distractions are clouding your inner voice. Your inner voice tells you what you dislike, what you are bothered by, what you want to achieve, everything that you can’t really acknowledge if you stuff your mind with music all day.
Even in regards to boredom, I try to use music to distract myself from being bored rather than develop a skill or hobby. This is so bad because there are days where I would set the day off badly by listening to music and using my phone, and as the hours would pass, I would constantly procrastinate by listening to songs instead of focusing and actually accomplishing something by pushing past my lack of motivation (inner voice). It’s important to enjoy music for what it is: entertainment. You wouldn’t rewatch the same TikTok 50 times without getting sick of it, right? I forget that music is meant to be enjoyed as an experience, and the experience definitely gets dulled the more times I listen, so I will now be limiting my consumption of it.
