Part 1 of a three-part series on hearing, communication, and the sounds of life.
“Silence is golden.”
I remember hearing that phrase many times growing up. My mother used to say it when I was being a little too loud. Teachers said it. Parents said it. Society seems to have accepted it as one of those universal truths.
But lately, I’ve been wondering if it really is.
When people talk about a beautiful morning, they often describe sitting outside with a cup of coffee and enjoying the silence. Yet in the very next sentence they tell me about the birds singing in the trees.
That always makes me smile.
Because if you can hear the birds, is it really silence?
As a father of two teenage daughters, I can tell you that I don’t find the silence of closed bedroom doors nearly as wonderful as I once thought I would. Maybe it’s nostalgia. Maybe it’s because time moves faster than we expect. But when I look back, I don’t miss the silence.
I miss the noise.
I miss the laughter.
I miss the conversations that made absolutely no sense.
I miss hearing them run through the house.
I even miss some of the arguments.
Those sounds weren’t peaceful. They weren’t quiet. But they were part of life.
And that got me thinking about hearing.
The Sounds We Don’t Think About
Most people think hearing is about communication.
And they’re right.
But it’s also much more than that.
Sound is how we experience the world around us.
A laugh tells us someone is happy.
A cheer tells us someone is excited.
Applause tells us someone is proud.
The sound of rain hitting the roof can bring a sense of calm.
A favorite song can transport us back twenty years in an instant.
Many of our memories are attached to sounds, even though we rarely stop to think about them.
The sound of children playing.
The sound of a spouse laughing from another room.
The sound of a church choir.
The sound of a baseball game on a summer evening.
The sound of life.
The Creek
One of the most rewarding parts of being an audiologist is hearing what patients notice after their hearing has been treated.
Many tell me they can hear birds in their backyard again.
Others tell me they can hear leaves rustling in the trees.
One gentleman shared a story that has stayed with me for years.
He and his family had been visiting the same vacation home for more than twenty-five years. After improving his hearing, he came back and told me something that caught my attention.
He said, “I remembered why we started going there.”
I asked him what he meant.
He told me there was a creek beside the house. Years ago, one of his favorite things was sitting outside and listening to the water flowing over the rocks.
At some point, he stopped hearing it.
Not because the creek changed.
Not because the environment changed.
His hearing had changed.
The creek was still there all along.
When he heard it again, it brought back memories he didn’t realize he had lost.
Now, is hearing a creek important?
Maybe.
Maybe not.
But it raises an interesting question.
If someone can no longer hear the creek beside their vacation home or the birds in their backyard, what else are they not hearing?
What Else Are We Missing?
In my office, I hear the same comments every week.
“People mumble.”
“My spouse doesn’t speak clearly.”
“They never face me when they talk.”
“They talk to me when I’m focused on something else.”
Sometimes those things are true.
But sometimes I ask a different question.
When did that start?
If you’ve known that person for twenty years, have they really changed that much?
Or has something changed in the way you’re hearing them?
Hearing loss rarely happens overnight.
It usually happens gradually.
So gradual that many people don’t notice it.
The brain adapts.
Families adapt.
Life adapts.
And before long, everyone assumes that hearing less clearly is simply part of getting older.
Many people don’t realize what they’ve been missing until they hear it again.
Why This Matters
The birds may not be the most important thing in the world.
Neither is the creek.
But hearing isn’t really about birds or creeks.
It’s about connection.
It’s about staying engaged in conversations.
It’s about hearing your grandchildren tell you a story.
It’s about enjoying dinner with friends without struggling to keep up.
It’s about hearing your spouse from across the room.
It’s about remaining connected to the people and experiences that make life meaningful.
The sounds themselves may seem small.
But together, they create the soundtrack of our lives.
So is silence really golden?
Sometimes.
But after spending more than two decades helping people hear better, I’ve come to appreciate something else.
The sounds of life are pretty valuable too.
If you’ve found yourself wondering whether people are mumbling more than they used to, if conversations seem more difficult than they once were, or if you’ve simply never had your hearing checked, it may be worth finding out where your hearing stands.
Not because you need hearing aids.
Not because something is wrong.
But because some of life’s most meaningful moments arrive quietly, and it would be a shame to miss them.
Continue the Conversation
Part 1: Is Silence Really Golden?
The sounds we don’t realize we’re missing.
Part 2: Are People Really Mumbling More?
Or have we simply become better at guessing?
Part 3: When Hearing Loss Makes Your World Smaller
How communication challenges can gradually affect our relationships, activities, and quality of life.