Learning to Accept the Noise Instead of Resenting It

This might resonate with those who are still finding themselves, who haven’t given up on the messy but important idea of understanding themselves. I’m trying to explain something peculiar, something hard to put into words…a feeling that’s a mix of frustration, disappointment, and longing. It’s a delicate thought, and if I’m not careful, it’ll either sound like an over-analysis or some melodramatic emotional mess. But this needs to be said, and I need to process this thought a little further, so here it goes…

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As I grow older, I can’t help but notice how “dumb” the world is. It’s not that I think I’m particularly smart! no, I know I’m not. But the way people behave, the things they complain about, the decisions they make…it just doesn’t make sense to me. The world feels like a system full of contradictions.

Why do people take jobs they hate and then complain about the salary and work-life balance? Why do they marry someone they barely know through arranged setups and then act shocked when they’re incompatible? Why do they vote for corrupt politicians and then cry about bad infrastructure? It’s not just the big things. It’s the little, stupid things too. People come to me with questions they could solve with a single Google search. I see people burning trash as if the air doesn’t matter. I hear loud processions blocking roads for their celebrations, like the world owes them space for their little parade. And honestly, it irritates me. Deeply.

But it’s not just the chaos around me, it’s the expectations that come with it. The noise isn’t just outside; it seeps into how people see me and what they expect me to be. There’s this suffocating weight of societal expectations, the quiet but constant pressure of what I should be doing. “You spend too much time in your room; go out more.” “You’re at this age; you should get married now.” “You have a degree in XYZ, so why aren’t you doing ABC?” “You should be making X amount of money by now.” Most of the time, they don’t even say it directly. It’s just implied, floating in the background, like a rule everyone knows but no one admits to enforcing.

But here’s the thing…I don’t want to live like that. I don’t want to play along, pretending their version of success is mine. I don’t want to build my identity based on what others think I should be doing. What’s worse is when people know they’re annoying me with their advice or opinions but still continue. It’s like they think they know better than I do about how I should live. It’s exhausting.

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For a while, I thought my irritation was justified. I thought my frustration with people was a sign that I had “figured it out.” I saw myself as an outsider who could see through the nonsense while everyone else was just blindly going along with it. But that feeling didn’t make me better…it made me lonely! I couldn’t connect with others because I kept seeing them as “bozos” participating in a game I wanted no part of. And when you see the world like that, you isolate yourself.

What I didn’t realize is that the very thing I hated in others…being pretentious, being disconnected from reality…had become part of me. I had turned into the kind of person who judges from the sidelines, thinking I’m different, thinking I know better. And it led to self-hatred, because I didn’t want to be that person. But there I was, caught in the same cycle of resentment that I despised in others.

The turning point came when I started understanding the concept of the absurd, something Camus talks about in The Myth of Sisyphus*. The absurd is what happens when we search for meaning in a universe that doesn’t give us any. We want life to be fair, orderly, and meaningful, but the universe doesn’t care. And for a while, I thought that realization would break me. But Camus doesn’t see the absurd as a reason to give up, he sees it as an invitation to live authentically. If life has no inherent meaning, then it’s up to us to create our own.

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And that’s when I realized the world isn’t “dumb.” It’s just absurd. And within that absurdity, there’s something beautiful. Think about it: billions of galaxies, trillions of planets, and here we are, alive on one of them, for a brief moment. The universe doesn’t care what we do, and that’s freeing. Even if humanity destroyed itself tomorrow, it wouldn’t matter on a cosmic scale. But that doesn’t mean what we do is meaningless, it just means we’re free to decide what is meaningful to us.

So why waste that freedom being angry at everything? Why spend my limited time fighting battles that don’t matter? If life is short and unpredictable, then every second I spend complaining about others is a second I’m not spending on something real.

But here’s the hard part: How do I find what’s meaningful to me in a world where nothing inherently matters? How do I find a purpose that doesn’t feel forced or fake?

For me, the only way to handle this weird clash between our search for meaning and the universe’s indifference is to be real,to be genuinely who I am. I’m drawn to people and situations where there’s no façade, no rehearsed performance: honest conversations, real human connections, work done with genuine care. It’s not about being perfect or making grand statements; it’s about stripping away the pretenses that keep us locked in the same tired cycle. If life truly has no built-in purpose, then I’d rather spend my time on things that feel authentic to me…things that wake me up inside! Because once I give up trying to fit into someone else’s idea of who I should be, I can finally start focusing on what actually moves me forward, what makes me feel alive.

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I was doing a guided meditation** recently, and the instructor said something that stuck with me. He was talking about noise, literal noise from the surroundings that can block your attention and make you angry. But instead of fighting the noise or trying to block it out, he said to acknowledge it. Accept it as part of the experience. You don’t have control over the noise or its source, but you do have control over how you respond to it. And that’s when it hit me…life works the same way!

The world’s noise, the chaos, the opinions of others, they’re always going to be there. I can’t shut them off, but I can choose not to let them consume me. I can let them be part of the background and focus on what really matters: building something authentic, something that feels true to me.

Just like in meditation, the goal isn’t to silence the noise but to acknowledge it, accept it, and return to yourself. I don’t need to fix the world or judge it. I don’t need to have control over everything. What I need is clarity about who I am and what I care about.

Camus wasn’t talking about giving up when he said, “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” He was talking about rebellion…the quiet rebellion of living on your own terms, even when life gives you no guarantees. Sisyphus isn’t happy because his task is easy or meaningful in the traditional sense. He’s happy because he’s accepted it as part of his life, and he chooses to keep going.

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And maybe that’s the answer. we don’t have to conquer the noise or fight every little thing that annoys us. We can live with the chaos, find beauty in it, and build something authentic within it. We don’t need the world to change… just need to change how “we” see it. That’s the rebellion I’m after!

Because if Sisyphus can find happiness in the struggle, then maybe we can too!

* I don’t want to be a pretentious beginner who understood The Myth of Sisyphus with just a casual read, I honestly took a lot of help from ChatGPT to make the context easier haha!.
** Not sponsored, just something I’m personally trying.

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Thanks for reading! 🙂