Realistically, we can't all make life-changing discoveries that place mankind on a new (and hopefully improved) trajectory, so where does that leave Adam Average and Olga Ordinary? Doomed to lead lacklustre lives of quiet desperation? I think not.
We can all live loud - even in our small corners.
'Live loud' is just the sort of catchy cliché that I love to appropriate - it is even alliterative, which would be my literary Achilles heel were I so deluded as to cherish such aspirations. But what does living loud actually mean? Well, for a start, I don't think it has anything to do with actual decibel levels; it certainly doesn't mean merely adding to society's ceaseless cacophony! I tend to be talkative so 'Empty barrels make the most noise' is an aphorism that I heard many times when I was growing up. (Most people are too polite to put it quite so bluntly now that I am theoretically grown-up but I know what they are thinking! Learning to watch my words, both in quantity and quality, is my lifelong challenge.) Given my natural verbosity, I harbour a sneaking skepticism about that other well-known adage, much beloved by my husband,'Actions speak louder than words', but in this context I fully subscribe to it: you can live loud without saying a word.
Living loud is knowing who you are and what you believe - and then living it out unashamedly, day in and day out, in both big and small ways. It's a walk first and a talk if you have to. Living loud is living with purpose because it is intentional and, more often than not, entails a sacrifice as it demands that we abandon the suffocating safety of life lived under the radar and come out of our comfortable closets to stand or fall by what we value. You can't live loud unnoticed. Not everyone will agree with you; not everyone will like you. But they are more likely to accord you the respect of thinking about what your life is saying.
Of course, living loud is no guarantee of goodness: Hitler lived just about as loud as one can, on every level, but people were in no doubt about what he stood for! But there is a kind of honesty in living loud, even for those with dubious intentions. What living loud does guarantee, at worst, is an escape from a life of quiet desperation and, at best, the chance to leave your footprint on someone else's life.
I think I could live with that.
Living loud is knowing who you are and what you believe - and then living it out unashamedly, day in and day out, in both big and small ways. It's a walk first and a talk if you have to. Living loud is living with purpose because it is intentional and, more often than not, entails a sacrifice as it demands that we abandon the suffocating safety of life lived under the radar and come out of our comfortable closets to stand or fall by what we value. You can't live loud unnoticed. Not everyone will agree with you; not everyone will like you. But they are more likely to accord you the respect of thinking about what your life is saying.
Of course, living loud is no guarantee of goodness: Hitler lived just about as loud as one can, on every level, but people were in no doubt about what he stood for! But there is a kind of honesty in living loud, even for those with dubious intentions. What living loud does guarantee, at worst, is an escape from a life of quiet desperation and, at best, the chance to leave your footprint on someone else's life.
I think I could live with that.
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