Today, I’m going to tell you about a lady I’ll call Pam. Pam is a friend of my mother’s, and very accomplished in her job. But that is a very small part of who she is. Pam is first and foremost a mother. She has three children, and they are the light of her life. If you were to see her talk about them, you wouldn’t be able to debate this fact. If there is a school or sporting event that conflicts with her regular work schedule, she will work another time. Pam is a devoted wife and mother. She’s also deaf, or rather, she used to be. At the age of six, Pam was stricken with meningitis. She lost the hearing in one ear completely, and her right ear began to steadily lose hearing. More than thirty years later, she had less than three percent hearing in her right ear. Pam reads lips and, partly because of her late, or postlinguistic, loss of hearing, can speak quite intelligibly. She communicates beautifully, and is easy to talk to. She’s able to email and fax most anyone not in the room with, and so leads a very typical life. About six weeks ago, Pam informed us that she wouldn’t be around for a while. She was going to have a cochlear implant. Today was her first day back to work, and it was interesting to hear what she was experiencing. She is in awe of the everyday sounds that we take for granted. She said she did not realize how loud a toilet flush is, or what music sounded like. She is able to hear her fax machine beep when she receives a fax, and believes that she will one day be able to use the phone again, something that she has been unable to do since she was a teenager. The one noise she told me she loved was her children’s laughter. For Pam, the pain and expense has been worth it. Just like anything else, though, there is a negative aspect. Along with the joys of laughter and birds singing, she is also inundated with the everyday background noise of life. Traffic is a bad noise for her, as is a restaurant full of people during the dinner rush. These times, she is literally in sensory overload. Of course, she will eventually get used to these everyday noises, much as we have grown accustomed over the years, but (here it comes… you all know me pretty well… say it with me…) it really got me thinking. We are so accustomed to our lives and the way we experience it, that we accept our familiarity as the norm. That is quite appropriate because, for you, that IS your reality. But sometimes, if you look at a situation in a fresh new way, you will see that there are many possible truths for that given situation. Pam is experiencing a different reality, and her life is becoming richer because of it. My goal this week is to look at my patterns of perception and see how I can change and improve my life for the better. It’s spring, so I guess I need to shift my paradigms around and see what I come up with. After all, we may be able to hear, but how well do we listen?

HP has these new commercials that I find hilarious. They talk about fame, and how our society is obsessed with it. They point out in the commercial that even chefs are celebrities nowadays. The ad goes on to say that people such as inventors are the people who are actually changing our lives and making a difference, not the boy bands (theirs is called “Down 2 Earth”) and the fitness gurus. For as long as people have been selling, advertising has been a reflection of the society to which they sell. I find this to be a fascinating way of studying sociology, and, in this case at least, quite accurate. I don’t know when I realized it, but I’m never going to be rich and famous. The great thing about this is that I’m fine with that. I don’t want to be adored by millions. Fame is just too expensive. I don’t want the scrutiny that the National Enquirer or the Internet brings. I don’t want to have to worry about my appearance so much that I’m consumed by it, and I don’t care what Joan Rivers or Mr. Blackwell thinks of my clothes. I simply know that kind of life is NOT for me. Most any lottery winner will tell you that, while mega-money solves a lot of problems, it creates just as many more and is not always all it’s cracked up to be. Tales abound of ordinary folks who have won vast amounts of money going nuts because everyone they’ve ever known has come out of the woodwork to ask them for a share of it. That is why most lottery winners shun publicity. I would, too. I’m not saying that a little notoriety isn’t sometimes a bad thing. I would love to have salon.com or Vanity Fair publish an essay of mine, or be asked to read an essay on National Public Radio. That said, I don’t want someone breaking into my house and sleeping in my guestroom while I’m home, either. Surely there is balance somewhere I guess the ultimate satisfaction for me would be to live a comfortable, stable and happy life, where I make those closest to me happy, and am able to pay all my bills and have some left over for when I’m old. Not a bad dream to have, is it? I hope not, because those are the sum of my goals and aspirations. Incidentally, if you’re with All Things Considered, This American Life or any other NPR program, please email me here.